


Love to be Loved

by UnderTheCancerMoon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst! The angst is coming! Please watch out for the angst!, Bullying, Coming of Age, Consensual Underage Sex, Cringe worthy situations that will make you happy you're a grown up now, Dry Humping, F/M, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Growing Pains, Horned up teens basically, If you're not a grown up you shouldn't be reading this anyway, Insanely frustrating and shitty communication skills, Loss of Virginity, Multi, Naughty popcorn, Period talk, Puberty, Raging Hormones, Slow Burn, Slow build angst, Talk of Consent, Teenage Drama, Thigh rides, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Masturbation, Underage Smoking, brief reference of sexual abuse of a child, hating your best friends brother who is kinda starting to look hot to you, inappropriate contact with a child, kids being kids, mention of child grooming, mention of miscarriage, unintentional daddy kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 92,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23706793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderTheCancerMoon/pseuds/UnderTheCancerMoon
Summary: A Life Fic.Growing up, and all of the awkwardness, heartache, and joy that comes with it.Rey's life changes completely when a fun young couple adopts her. She gets to live in a new house, make new friends, and be a part of a family. She's not so sure how she feels about her new neighbor though.Ben is bored with life. He's ready to be grown up already. It doesn't help that the woman of his dreams just adopted a brat almost the same age as him. Love is complicated.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 482
Kudos: 328





	1. It's living on the tip of my tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNING** Very brief mention of a child sexual abuse threat and miscarriage in first chapter. 
> 
> Big thanks to [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) for her beta work and story help and [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) for her constant support.

[ ](https://imgur.com/c12Z2eM)

Rey: Eleven 

She stopped marking the days on the wall behind her headboard when she ran out of space. Her small hand struggled to squeeze into the dusty corner and pencil in the last dash across a row of four others.

2,390 dashes, which equaled 2,390 days. Which was the equivalent of 78 months, 2 weeks, and one day to the day she ran out of room. That was two weeks before she was officially adopted. 

At eleven years old she had spent over half of her life in this orphanage. 

Six and a half years of being told to, “stand up straight” and “look sharp” and “Smile! People _like_ little girls who smile _big!_ ” every time a new couple came in to meet with the orphaned girls held at the old victorian home on Cedar Lane.

The older she got, the less likely she was to be chosen. They made that clear, year after year, as girls around her came and went. One blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl only stayed for two weeks before a couple came and whisked her away in their mid-sized sedan. 

Rey watched from the window of her bedroom as the girl’s new father pulled a giant teddy bear from the trunk and held it before her with a smile. She wrapped her little arms around it and crushed it close, golden ringlets swaying happily across her back. The parents exchanged a smile over her head and to an outside observer, they looked like a real family. Like she really, really belonged to them. Like she was actually theirs and they had finally come back for her.

For a long time, Rey thought that once her parents settled their troubles, they would be back for her too. 

She didn’t remember much. Just her mother’s pretty green eyes lined in heavy black eyeliner which was often smudged. She smoked a lot, and her hands trembled. Her chewed fingernails were always painted in bright colors. Her hair color was always different, too. Blonde or red, even blue once. Mum decorated her own bedroom with colored bird feathers of all kinds, hanging from strings and clipped in various places, and she let Rey draw on the walls in her own room. 

Rey was allowed to drink clear soda, but not the brown kind or the orange kind. Her Mum had drawn a huge portrait of Marilyn Monroe right on the light blue wall of her bedroom with a Sharpie marker, the features of her face a little too squished and distorted to look like the real Marilyn, whose picture hung in several spots throughout their apartment. 

Mum slept a lot; and cried. When she cried, Rey would always offer her current favorite toy. That would make Mum smile again, and lift the covers, where Rey could burrow in next to her, “snug like a bug." She smelled like tobacco, laundry detergent, and the sticks she used to burn upright in a little bowl painted with daisies. Rey used to watch the smoke from the sticks rise up and swirl, dancing slowly, as the red line sunk further down, leaving grey ash in its wake.

She thought she knew her Daddy, too. Although Mum never wanted her to call him that. 

He appeared one day at breakfast, coming out of her Mum’s room in his underwear, which had made Rey bubble over with laughter because she had only seen something so funny on the telly! 

He gave her small things. Shiny plastic jewelry, tiny fuzzy teddy bears of all colors with red bowties. An entire collection of _Galaxy Gal_ dolls no taller than her pinky, each with giant eyes and different outfits, that she kept lined along the windowsill of her bedroom. 

“Our secret,” he would whisper, the gift in his palm, as he gave her a wink. 

Those tokens felt special. They proved he loved her.

He snuck her candy too, making her promise not to tell Mum. And she never did! She would store it away, only to pull it out later at night, when they had both gone off to bed, and she knew she wouldn’t get caught because she could hear the rhythmic dull thumps and squeaking of the mattress, signifying their distraction. 

One day, when Mum wasn’t home, he had asked her to come and sit on his lap, while he poured her a bowl of cereal. It was her favorite kind too! Not even the knock off kind Mum always bought with a poorly drawn dog riding a skateboard on the box, but the real stuff—with a kangaroo giving a thumbs up and a wink. 

She held the box in one hand, spoon in the other, admiring it with a grinning mouthful as her little legs swung joyfully below the table.

Her Daddy played with her hair and kissed the back of her neck.

“Don’t tell Mum,” he warned her again, quietly. 

But it was already too late. Mum had come in and when she got to the top of the stairs, her Daddy pushed Rey right off him and to the floor, causing her to up-end her mostly full bowl. Milk and cereal dripped down from the tabletop, pattering onto her head a few times, as she watched her Mum throw fists at her Daddy. Pick up a pan from the sink and hit him with it. He struck her back, and Rey began to cry, sinking further back under the shelter of the table.

Mum was screaming. Screaming and _screaming_. Rey had never seen someone so upset about cereal. Mum ran into the bedroom, and when she came out, she was holding a gun. Daddy ran down the stairs and out of the door. She never saw him again. 

Her Mum slid to the floor, pulling her close, sloshing straight through the puddle of milk and rainbow puffs. She kept asking if he touched her, did he touch her, and Rey could only howl and choke for air, her words stolen by emotion. She didn’t know what she meant! Mum held her tight to her chest and cried. Deep, chest-rattling wails that matched Rey’s. 

It was the last time she had felt her Mum’s arms.

She went to bed that night and the next morning, she woke up here. 

Now, she was standing on the steps of St. Cecilia’s Home for Girls, watching as Mr. Andor pulled his car around.

“Be good for Mr. and Mrs. Andor, Rey,” Unkah Plutt warned in a chastising tone, bowing before her to pull her lapel here, tug on the hem of her crooked skirt there. Unkah’s tight bun did nothing to hide her unfortunate and bulbous features. Her skin reminded Rey of lumpy, unrisen bread, save the doughy patch of fat that cradled under her chin like a lardy neckbrace. “Remember what I said about children being seen and not heard.”

Rey nodded quietly. She wasn’t stupid. All of the years of watching had made her an expert on how to play a perfectly well-behaved daughter. 

A firm, steady hand rested on her shoulder.

“No need for the pep-talk, Sister Unkah. We’re sure Rey will be just fine,” replied the woman standing beside Rey. The one who was now going to be her new Mum. “And it’s _Ms_. _Erso_ , not Mrs. Andor.”

That ruffled Unkah in such a visible way it made Rey have to tuck her smile into her chest. 

With a curt nod, the nun straightened, jaw clenched.

“Alright, we’re all packed and ready to go!” Mr. Andor jogged up the uneven and weed-laced cement path with a smile. He was young and exuberant. His big grin made Rey want to match it, but she dared not. Not just yet.

“You ready?” Asked the pretty young woman smiling down at her. Her green eyes crinkled at the corners. They were winged with black liner, like her own Mum’s used to be. 

Rey nodded. Jyn offered Rey her palm, and Rey slid her own against it, softly curling her fingers around the older woman’s. Jyn gave her little digits a quick squeeze. 

Once buckled into the back, Rey looked around the tidy and nice smelling car, before her head tipped up to the roof. Her mouth dropped open as she had a clear view of the cerulean blue sky and whispy strips of clouds on this perfect day in mid-September. 

“My God,” Jyn griped, kicking off her heels once they were in the privacy of the four closed doors. “I can’t wait to get this skirt off! Can you believe that woman? _Mrs. Andor_ ,” she huffed, snapping down the passenger side visor and wiping at the lipstick on her mouth in the mirror with a tissue. “They practically dug up my report cards from the 3rd grade for this adoption and she just couldn’t help herself to dig at the fact that we aren’t married.” She loosened her hair, shaking it out of it’s once wound style. It was shorn in layers, brown, and wild. 

Cassian shook his head in the driver’s seat with a laugh. “She’s one to judge, her husband is invisible.”

Jyn gave a throaty laugh, tipping her head back against the headrest. She rolled it to the side to look back at Rey, smiling.

She was _so_ beautiful.

“You like that jacket?”

Rey looked down at her tan blazer, starched white shirt, and matching pleated skirt. Her Sunday clothes. 

“No,” she answered honestly for the first time in her young life. “I hate it.”

Jyn nodded, her head bobbing in approval like she was listening to her favorite rock song. “Then take it off, kid!”

Rey ripped her arms out of the sleeves, wiggling her way out of the heavy, stiff fabric quickly. She whipped the jacket out in front of her, arm extended. 

Jyn flexed her outstretched hand, motioning for Rey to throw it to her, so she did.

“Alright, we don’t litter,” she said, sternly, but with the air of jest. “So we can’t pitch this ugly ass thing out the window, BUT,” she raised a finger, brow lowering in seriousness. “We can burn it in a ritual bonfire after dinner tonight.”

Rey’s eyes went wide, imagining them dancing around the roaring flames of a fire, beating their chests, flailing their arms, whooping to the moon.

“Really?” She asked in awe.

“Yup. The skirt too, if you want,” Cassian offered, his smiling eyes looking back at her in the rearview mirror. “But keep that on until we get home at least.”

Rey laughed and nodded, hardly able to imagine such a silly thing. 

Jyn placed her hand out flat between them. Cassian reached back and placed his over hers, palm up. 

“You’re in our wolfpack now Rey,” Jyn nodded her way, beckoning her to join, and Rey reached forward, gently slapping her hand on top of theirs.

“Aa-aa- _AOOOOO!!_ ” Jyn howled, tipping her head back. Cassian followed suit, and soon Rey’s own face was tilted toward the ceiling as she howled up to the bright sky. When she finished, her belly ached for the first time in a long time from laughter. 

  
  


***

  
  


The afternoon sun was still blazing as they pulled up to her new home. When she first saw it, she thought that surely it had to be a mansion. It was nearly as big as the old house on Cedar Lane! But it was so much newer and far less spooky and haunted-looking.

It was painted the prettiest shade of blue Rey had ever seen. Like the wings of a rare butterfly, with white shutters and flower boxes, and big wide smiling windows to let all of the sunshine in. She couldn’t have even _imagined_ a more perfect home.

“I’m the only kid that lives here?” she asked, in awe, looking through the front window of the car.

“The only one,” Jyn laughed, climbing out of the passenger seat. She yanked open the back door, and Rey was already unbuckled, at the edge of her literal seat with excitement. Jumping out of the door, she stood in the driveway and looked up at the three-story house in amazement. 

Cassian was pulling their bags from the trunk and he paused with a frown. “Does that mean we’re too old to be considered kids now?” He quipped.

“ ‘fraid so, babe,” Jyn joked, as she bent beside Rey and pointed up.

“See those windows up there?” she said softly, poking her finger in the direction of the second story window with beautiful, arched bay panes bowing out in a semi-circle over a small roof. “That’s your room.”

Rey’s little mouth dropped open.

“ _Mom!_ ” shrieked a voice from behind the tall line of green bushes behind them that divided their home from the neighbors. “They’re home! They’re _home!_ ” 

Loud, little footsteps slapped against the blacktop of an unseen driveway, to the sidewalk at the end of their own drive. They stopped, when a girl Rey’s age skidded around the corner, her flying golden hair shining in the sun, a red scrunchie nearly as big as her head plopped on the top of her crown. Her eyes were deep brown and wide. So was her grin.

“Hi!”

Rey was still a little stunned, looking back at the excited girl hesitantly. 

“Hi,” she said, softly.

“I’m Kaydel! I live next door!” Her voice was high, pitched piercing with excitement. “My Mom and I made you cookies today, but I was so excited I accidentally left them inside! Do you like chocolate chip?” 

Rey nodded.

“Oh good!” she breathed, relieved. “I was worried. My brother only likes oatmeal raisin, which is totally gross, but so is he,” she had a touch of a lisp, due to the braces across her teeth. She gasped, eyeing all of the bags piled up at the end of the car. “Did you guys go shopping for school clothes? Are you going to Ackbar Middle school this year or are you still in 5th grade? My Mom said we were the same age, but you’re a little shorter than me, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, that’s where I’m going! It would be _so cool_ if you had Mrs. Holdo for homeroom too!”

“Take a breath, darling,” joked a kind-looking woman, emerging from the end of the bushes in the yard.

Rey thought she was very pretty, although it appeared that she was definitely older than Jyn and Cassian. Her hair was brown, with a shocking streak of grey bolting straight out of her widow’s peak, combed back to mix with the rest of her strands, hanging in a braid off of her shoulder. She smiled warmly at Rey, a little with her mouth, but mostly with her eyes. The same eyes as Kaydel’s, but wiser. 

“Hello, Rey. Welcome home.”

Rey blushed, speechless from the attention. 

“Congratulations,” the woman said as she handed off a Tupperware container full of cookies to Jyn and chuckled gently. She reached forward, pulling Jyn, who was slightly taller, into a loving and solid hug. 

Jyn accepted the hug warmly, closing her eyes with a relaxed smile over the shorter woman's shoulder.

“Thank you, Leia,” and Rey couldn’t help but notice the pitch in her voice as it wavered with emotion. They embraced for a few moments before the woman moved on to share a hug with Cassian as well. 

When she backed away, she gave a mighty sigh, resting her hands on her hips and facing the group. “Well, I’m not sure where Ben is lurking at the moment, but I’m sure he’ll be over eventually.”

Cassian made an amused noise and folded his arms to his chest with a grin. “Oh, I’m _sure_ he’ll be around. Our grass has never looked better than it has this summer,” he teased, causing Jyn to slap a playful arm into his chest and Leia to chuckle knowingly. 

“Yes, thirteen should come with a survival guide and a free handle of whiskey for each parent,” Leia joked, cupping a gentle hand behind Kaydel’s head as she came to stand by her side. 

“Mom, can Rey _please_ come over and see my _Galaxy Gal_ dolls?” Kaydel pleaded, looking up at her mother with wide, doe eyes. 

Rey held her breath. She had never actually _seen_ a _real_ _Galaxy Gal_ doll before! Only the miniatures the man she thought was her father had bought for her, what seemed like a lifetime ago. 

“Tomorrow, sweetheart,” Leia said kindly. “Rey’s had a big day and I’m sure she wants some time to settle in.”

Kaydel nodded thoughtfully at that and then smiled. “Okay,” she said cheerily with a shrug. She looked at Rey, “But you can come over tomorrow and I’ll show you _all_ of them! And my seashell collection! Oh, and I can show you my favorite hiding place and then we can go for a swim!”

Rey nodded, a smile growing on her own face. She had never had a friend her own age before. All of the girls at the orphanage were either too old, too young or didn’t stay around long enough.

“Okay.”

Leia began leading Kaydel away gently by the shoulders.

“Nice to meet you Rey, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Kaydel gave one last enthusiastic wave as they disappeared around the shrubbery. 

“Oh yes,” Cassian teased, reaching up to close the trunk. “Indulge the tortured boy by letting him see you in a bathing suit yet again. You know I was thirteen once. We should be worried about the kid's carpal tunnel.”

“Shut up,” Jyn laughed with a roll of her eyes as she grabbed a few bags from the ground, passing two to Rey, who took them eagerly.

Cassian gave her a teasing wink and looked down at Rey as they walked toward the house. “Sister Unkah told me that pizza was your favorite food, is that true?”

Rey nodded enthusiastically. The home’s food mostly consisted of large quantities of brown and grey muck, mixed with vegetables they harvested from the back gardens, but occasionally, on a special birthday or for a treat, they were allowed pizza. Hot and steaming, melty and gooey, the box and pie nearly as big as the table in the rec cellar. 

“Have you ever made your own?”

Rey’s eyes widened. “You mean like throwing the dough in the air like they do in the movies?”

Cassian laughed, putting his key into the front door. “Yes! Exactly like that.”

  
  
  
  
  


Ben: Thirteen 

Ben looked up to his ceiling, his headphones at the highest setting pumping _The Clash_ into his eardrums at a volume he was sure his mother would hate. He was into everything from England at the moment. The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, Bowie, _fuck_ , even The Spice Girls. Anything that could bring him to think of the lilting accent that tortured his heart.

Two years ago, when a young couple purchased the Kenobi’s old place, Ben hadn’t cared much about it. He was still too deep into Legos and Pokemon cards back then to truly appreciate what love was. 

Too blinded by comic books and plucking frogs out of the pond in the park and riding his bike till the streetlights flared alive to notice such a gorgeous thing like Jyn Erso being in his radius. 

He had actually met Cassian first. 

He was sitting outside on an overcast day, his nose burrowed deep in the latest _Admiral Alderaan_ issue when Cassian happened to appear in his yard. 

“Hey Ben,” he said kindly, with that endearing accent of his. “Is your Dad home?”

Ben nodded. His Dad was not home very often, due to his work, and they had celebrated Kaydel’s belated 9th birthday the night before with a Funfetti cake served over _Galaxy Gal_ paper plates. 

“He’s in the garage.”

Cassian tipped his chin towards the comics. “You know, I have some old _Admiral Alderaan_ issues Jyn has been begging me to get rid of. You think you’d be interested in taking them off my hands?”

Ben’s jaw nearly dropped into his folded legs on the grass. “Y-yeah! Thank you, Mr. Andor!”

A few days later, Leia informed him that there was a box waiting for him at the neighbor’s house. 

He raced up their steps and eagerly rang the bell, bouncing in anticipation. 

Jyn had answered the door. She smiled down at him, warmly. Gently rubbing her big, round belly hidden under a long, moss green dress.

“Hello, Benjamin. Come on in.”

He followed her into the warm house. They had replaced the Kenobi’s boring bland white walls and beige furniture with every other vibrant color imaginable. Splashes of yellow and green and purple and red. Art and texture and trinkets and framed pictures were _everywhere_ , causing his wide eyes to dart about, trying to take it all in. 

The house felt alive in his young mind. Full of magic and wonder.

“I’m afraid it’s a little too heavy for me to lift right now,” she said with a smile, as she gestured to the cardboard box, overflowing with comics, rolled posters, and figurines. “But I’m so glad it’s going to you. I think you’ll really love and take care of them.”

That was the last time he had seen her before everything changed. 

His Mom hadn’t really let him know what was going on. All he knew was that one Saturday morning she had answered her phone at breakfast, and abandoned her stack of pancakes with just one bite out of them, pulling on her coat and rushing out the door with a command that he watch Kaydel and not leave the house. 

She checked in throughout the day, but wouldn’t tell him what was going on.

Finally, long after he put Kaydel to bed and read her a story (no one went to bed without a story in their house) Ben fell asleep on the couch with the light on, waiting for his mother to return. 

He was awoken by the soft sound of the front door closing.

“Mom?” he asked groggily, sitting up.

She had hugged him so fiercely then. Not even bothering to take off her shoes or coat. Tugged him in tight to her chest and openly sobbed. Kissing his head repeatedly, she pet his hair and held him so close he could hear her heartbeat, it made him start to cry as well. 

Jyn Erso stopped wearing colors after that. 

Her belly was gone and it took about a year for Ben to truly understand why.

She didn’t smile like she used to. Didn’t wave to him over the fence when she was watering her plants while he was bobbing at the end of the diving board. Her eyes always seemed to be distantly set, her mind off somewhere else, as she sat on the porch, cocooned in a big blanket. 

He tried to be extra nice to her. If he found a particularly pretty and smooth stone in the creek, he would leave it tucked beneath the railing of their front stairs. Or he’d leave a flower for her, anonymously placed on a handrail or the seat cushion of their outdoor wicker furniture. 

He watched once, hidden in the bushes across the yard, as she picked up the bright yellow wild daffodil he left one morning, the smallest of smiles on her lips as she brought it to her nose for a sniff.

That one small smile had made his entire summer.

It went on like this, as he grew taller, his knees and limbs aching at night from the growth spurts. When he started 7th grade, he was the tallest boy in class by almost a full head. The girls giggled as he passed in the halls and doodled their love for him in notebooks, but he couldn’t be bothered with them. He had no time for silly, immature children, with their stupid blinking eyes and pink-flushed cheeks. His attention remained on one woman and one woman only.

Surely, once he managed to make it to eighteen, she would see him for the man that he was.

What were five years compared to a lifetime with the woman of your dreams anyway?

He imagined himself, tall and handsome, the day of his 18th birthday, flowers in hand, limousine idling for them at the curb. She wouldn’t even hesitate when he asked her to come away with him. She’d grab his hand and they would run down the steps laughing. 

And this summer, everything had truly changed. 

One brutally hot day, he started up the lawnmower, ready to pop in his earbuds and blissfully drone out the whir of the machine before him. 

He had already finished his yard when the mower sputtered to a stop. He reloaded the gas and quietly rolled it over to the Andor-Erso’s.

He was already planning on a sneaky way in which he could show off his newly formed biceps (his Dad had let him buy a weight set at a garage sale in May, and he was already seeing results as he flexed and posed before the mirror each morning), his tank top strategically hiding his less than formed pectoral muscles, which seemed impossible to build up, on his scrawny bird-chest. If he played his cards right, Jyn would undoubtedly come out with a glass of lemonade for him and he’d be able to steal a few precious moments of her time and find out how her summer was going. 

So distracted by the energy of _Rudie Can’t Fail_ that was flooding his ears, he rolled the mower to the back corner of their property, thinking a change in starting point might make the task pass faster. 

He pulled the ripcord, the hi-hat and guitar strum of the song accompanied by a loud roar of the oil-hungry machine before him. 

His head snapped to the side, as Jyn, previously unnoticed and apparently in a deep sleep while sunbathing, jolted straight up from her slumbering state, laid across the lounge chair in her backyard.

Her bikini top still rested on the bed of the lounger as she looked at him, wide-eyed on all fours. 

Ben merely caught a glimpse of her slightly paler exposed breasts and their tight and pert nipples, before he turned to face the fence of his own family’s yard, his cheeks on fire, his shorts involuntarily tight.

 _Holy shit! Boobs! In real life!_

“I-I’m _so sorry!_ ” he shouted, awkwardly. He grabbed the mower and pushed it at an insanely fast pace, practically running out of the yard.

That vision of her haunted him. Crept up under his bedsheets at night and taunted him until he finally gave way to cuffing himself into his own brutal grip and pumping until he felt the shuttering exhale of release. 

Quickly, it became a nightly ritual. 

He avoided her at all costs, ashamed of his private nightly practice. Finding that he struggled to look at her directly, unable to get the picture of her gorgeous round breasts out of his mind. 

Summer ended and he was forced to go back to school.

The first few weeks of eighth grade were fairly typical. 

The girls continued to be relentless in their batting-eyelashed gazes and saccharine sweet voices. 

Distractedly, he’d get handed notes during class or was cornered at the water fountain when all he wanted was a damn drink. 

Even more annoying, now that Kaydel was at his school, he was forced to walk home with her each day, a swarm of her bubble-headed classmates trailing behind him like a squabbling parade of ducklings. 

He swore he hated girls. There was no creature on the planet as annoying as a tween-aged girl. 

Faint, dark hair began to grow above his upper lip and he decided to leave it. Anything to make him appear a little more mature in the eyes of his beloved neighbor.

“Good Lord, Benjamin, I wish you’d shave that ugly thing,” his mother clicked her tongue at him at the breakfast table, shaking her head. 

Slightly wounded, he reached up to touch his mustache with a frown. 

“It makes your face look dirty,” Kaydel agreed through a mouthful of toast. “And dumber than usual.”

Ben lobbed a grape at her and it pinged off her forehead.

“Hey!”

“Grapes are expensive, Ben,” Han said in a lecturing tone from behind his newspaper at the table. “Hit her with a home fry next time.”

“Han!” Leia laughed.

“ _Dad!_ ” Kaydel cried.

After breakfast Leia herded them into the Suburban, Ben opting to sit in the far back, headphones already firmly in place, head tipped to the window, ready to ignore both his sister and his mother on the arduous ride to Ackbar Middle School. 

He couldn’t wait to start high school next year and get away from all of these dumb babies. 

He was on a _Sylvan Esso_ kick that week, _What Now_ being on full rotation after he heard it drifting out of the Andor-Erso house late one evening. 

The weight of the vehicle shifted, as he watched his sister bounce excitedly, her mouth moving mutely, drowned out by the peppy drumbeat and synthesizers of _Song_.

A girl, brown hair pulled into three separate buns, stacked on the back of her head like a faux-hawk, dipped in through the open door. She closed the door behind her and turned her face to smile at his sister, her mouth also moving, but the words drowned out by his music. 

Ben blinked, confusedly. 

He pulled out one bud from his ear. 

“—Oh-M-GEE!” Kaydel gasped, her hand moving to her mouth with a giggle. Leia shifted the car in reverse and they began to roll backward down the driveway. “Mom would never let me stay up that late! _Mom_ , how come you never let me stay up that late!”

Leia rolled her eyes with a laugh. “You battle with a cranky sleep-deprived Kaydel first thing in the morning, and we'll talk.”

“We didn’t _mean_ to stay up so late!” The girl said, a little defensively. “But we were painting and it was just _so fun_. Jyn is a really good painter.”

Ben’s ears perked up. He removed his other earbud, pausing the song on his phone. 

“Sounds like you’re really enjoying staying with Jyn and Cassian,” his mother said kindly, her eyes briefly looking back to the girl in the rearview mirror.

Her bunned head bobbed eagerly. “Yes, Mrs. Solo. I like Jyn and Cassian very much.”

Ben frowned. “Are you her cousin or something?”

Ben’s deep voice caused the girl to jolt slightly as if she hadn’t realized there was another passenger in the vehicle. She turned her head and Ben finally got a full view of her face. 

Pretty, delicate, and petite features. A sandstorm of freckles smattered across her nose and cheeks. Big, olive green eyes with specks of brown, a lot like Jyn’s, wide from shock. The creeping hint of a blush rising in her cheekbones as she stared back at him.

Great, he thought with a grumble. Another admirer. 

“Rey is Cassian and Jyn’s daughter,” Leia stated, flicking on the blinker to make a left turn into the school's long driveway. 

“Don’t you ever _listen?_ ” Kaydel said, as if scandalized, turning to scowl at him, her brown eyes rolling back and her nose scrunching up in distaste.

His frown deepened as the girl continued to stare at him and he stared right back. 

“Why would they want a kid as old as you?”

He didn’t like that she was close to his age. Didn’t like that it only widened the chasm of age that already separated him and Jyn. How was she ever going to see him as anything more than a kid when she had a daughter just a few years younger than him?

It wasn’t entirely rational, but he blamed the girl regardless.

“ _Benjamin_ ,” his mother’s tone had such a sharp edge to it that instantly made his stomach curl. “Apologize _immediately!_ ”

“Sorry,” he muttered. The girl’s chin jutted out slightly as she turned, facing toward the front of the car. 

“I’m sorry Rey,” his sister said gently, leaning in. “Ben’s kind of an a-hole.”

“ _Kaydel Colleen Solo!_ ” Leia threw the car into park, before turning to look back at all of them. 

“Well, he _is!_ ” Kaydel cried defensively.

“Everybody out!” Leia growled, exhaustively, shaking her head. “Rey, have a lovely first day of school. You two,” her finger pointed from Kaydel to Ben and back. “I will deal with you when you get home.”

She peeled away, leaving them at the curb of the school. 

Kaydel sighed, her hands rising up to grip the straps of her backpack. 

“Thanks a lot, dumbhead,” she muttered, turning in the direction of the entrance as the morning bell rang. 

Ben rolled his eyes, popping his earbuds back in and pressing play.

The girl, Rey, stood in front of him, her lovely small face set in a frown. He towered over her like he did most of the kids at school.

He huffed. “What?”

Again, her jaw jutted out a little as her eyes lowered from his face.

And then she lifted her brand new sneaker and fiercely stomped right on his foot. 

Ben let out a yelp, and a curse, gaping as she turned, quickly running forward to catch up with his sister, as he stayed behind, hopping in an attempt to ease the pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incredible [@reylographer](https://twitter.com/reylographer) drew the moment before the foot stomp and it's so incredible, I just adore it! 
> 
> [All At Once](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgQ9Rk_DT1s)  
> Fic Title
> 
> [Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2qkDmilzBw)  
> Chapter Title
> 
> [Rudie Can't Fail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuS698b0ess)  
> Holy shit! Boobs! In real life!


	2. With every blow comes another lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! 
> 
> I don't really plan on shying away from some of the more cringe-worthy and strange things that happen during this awkward time in everyone's lives, and we all have different experiences throughout this time. That being said, in addition to updating my tags on the main description as I go, I will do them chapter by chapter as well, just to be helpful to anyone who may have any trigger issues.
> 
> This chapter: bullying, violence, consent talk, underage drinking, puberty, unintentional Daddy kink (kinda?) 
> 
> Endless thanks to [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) and [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) for their work, help, and overall loveliness!

[ ](https://imgur.com/RHwGbCq)

Ben figured that eighth grade had to be the worst. The whole year felt like it had actually lasted three.

His grades remained high, although boredom got the better of him once or twice daily. He was only kicked out of class a handful of times for his temper, but one of those times he punched the wall outside of Mr. Tarkin’s history class right before Thanksgiving break. This resulted in a fractured hand and a stupid red cast his mother griped about every time she saw him with it (which was often). 

She made him hide it behind Kaydel when they posed for their family photo for this year’s Holiday card. 

“You need to get a better hold on that temper of yours, Benjamin,” she lectured another night. The small crease between her eyebrows deepened as she sat across from him in the mall food court, watching him struggle and fail to eat his lo-mein noodles out of a recyclable box. 

He knew she was right, but it’s not like it was something he felt he was truly in control of, to begin with. 

The cast was itchy and annoying as hell. So many girls asked to sign it, but he left it blank, save a drawing of a small dick, placed there when he wasn’t paying attention, thanks to his friend, Armitage. 

He left the dick, giving Leia yet another thing to be mad about every time she laid eyes on him. 

But wasn’t irritating your mother a right of passage at fourteen or something?

Over the winter holiday break, their house was warm, bright, and packed with shining colored lights, bows, and billions of pine needles.

“I never met a Jewish lady who loves Christmas as much as your mother,” his father grumbled, head and shoulders stuffed into the attic crawl space, as he passed box after box of decorations down to Ben. The menorah sat proudly in the front window, even though they had never been to temple in Ben’s lifetime. 

“You don’t need to be in a building to hold God in your heart,” Leia explained to Ben, pulling a sheet of Christmas tree-shaped cookies out of the oven the afternoon of their annual holiday party. The house smelled amazing, the scent of roasting meats, sweet cookies, and flaky pastries all mixing together as _Tony Bennett: The Classic Christmas Album_ floated through the house, per tradition. 

He and Kaydel were stuck with decorating what seemed to be an endless pile of freaking cookies. The three of them in matching holiday aprons that made him feel like an idiot. It was almost too bad that his cast had been removed because he probably could have used it as an excuse not to help. 

Kaydel hummed happily next to him, wearing an antler headband, a pair of flashing lightbulb earrings lighting up her cheeks in different colors. The sloppy piping on her wreath cookies was really bothering him, so he tried not to look.

“But if you want to start going to temple, I could get in touch with the Rabbi,” Leia offered, sliding yet _another_ sheet full of cooled cookies, this time snowmen, onto the pile in front of them. 

That was the last thing he wanted, really. It just seemed hypocritical to him to call yourself one thing, but then not practice that very same thing.

Later that night, friends and family united at the Solo’s huge dining room table, sharing what was probably the best meal he thought he’d ever had. He got to sit next to Jyn, who wore a black cocktail dress and smelled just like the sweet sugar cookies they had baked earlier that day. 

Her hand brushed his when she passed the green bean casserole and he tried _really hard_ not to think about her perfect boobs. 

Failing. Obviously. 

He had secretly hoped that this would be the year he would “accidentally” bump into her below the mistletoe. In his mind, he’d casually pretend not to care. Like, oh wow, would you look at that? The mistletoe. What a dumb tradition... and then she’d grab his face and plant her pretty lips right over his.

Much to his dismay though, his mother decided not to hang it because of all the "hormonal energy" floating around. Whatever the fuck that meant. 

The adults' faces started to grow flushed and rosy from wine, as they sat around the table eating dessert, while the kids broke free, gathering together in the refinished room of their basement, adjacent to his new bedroom. 

He, Armitage, Rey, and Kaydel, sat in a little circle around a half-empty bottle of wine he had lifted from the kitchen on their way down. 

Kaydel took a big swig right from the bottle, her little cheeks puffing out in disgust and her eyes growing large. She swallowed roughly, coughing afterward.

“Oh yuck!” she spat, taking her palm and running it down the length of her tongue as if to wipe the taste away. “That’s _disgusting!_ Rey, you need to try it!”

Rey took the bottle, stealing a much more delicate sip for herself. Her face scrunched with revulsion.

“Ugh!”

Armitage rolled his eyes and swiped the bottle from her, helping himself to a few hearty gulps. He and Ben finished the bottle themselves, giving Ben a giddy buzz for when they went back upstairs to play White Elephant. 

***

January passed in a blur, the only memorable moment being when Ben was coming back to science class, having “forgotten” his book in his locker.

He pushed open the door at the top of the stairwell, admittedly walking a little slower than he probably needed to, enjoying having the empty hallways to himself. 

“Why do you wear your hair like that anyway? It’s stupid!” The words rang out, bouncing off the brick walls and cement stairs. 

“Because _I like_ it! Who cares what you think! Get out of my way!” Bit back a familiar tone.

Ben peered over the metal railings to see the back of some idiot seventh-grade boy as he stood, pinning Rey to the wall. Books knocked down presumably by the bully, were scattered to the ground around them, stray pieces of paper here and there. The boy reached up and tugged at the bottom bun on Rey’s head roughly, causing her to yelp, and shove him hard in the chest. 

The little asshole growled, “You’re gonna regret that,” as he lifted his arm as if to punch her.

Ben was on autopilot. Before he even knew his body was moving, he was down the stairs and gripping the little fuckface by his shirt collar, slamming him into the wall beside Rey. The much smaller boy’s eyes were wide with fear as Ben scowled at him wordlessly. You could almost hear the piss dribbling down his pant leg in the quiet hallway. 

Ben took a step back, releasing his balled fist from the front of the boy’s shirt with a shove toward the first-floor corridor doors. 

“If I catch you near her again, you’ll be choking on your teeth,” he gritted out before the punk could turn tail and run at full speed out of the stairwell. 

He looked back to Rey, still pressed against the wall, her eyebrows nearly touching each other from her scowl. She was breathing heavily through her flared nostrils, looking absolutely _furious_. 

“If that fucking shitbird comes near you again, you better tell me,” he warned, stooping to pick up her history book. It was wrapped in what used to be a brown paper bag. Kaydel’s recognizable scribble appeared here and there accompanied by several doodles of various nature items, such as flowers, the sun, birds, and a cross-eyed cat at the bottom. 

He was thinking that he would gladly have broken his hand again on that kid’s face when she snatched the book out of his grip.

“I don’t need you to protect me! I can take care of myself!” She snapped, angrily grabbing her other books from the ground.

Ben’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. 

Over the several months since Rey’s arrival next door, she was more often than not camped out somewhere within the property lines of the Solo home on a daily basis. Shrieking with Kadel in the pool during the last gasp of warm days, splayed out on her belly in their living room floor reading dumb girl magazines with his sister, giggling _ceaselessly_ through the thin wall that separated their bedrooms on the second floor. 

He titled them “The Giggle Twins” and had finally convinced Leia to let him move his bedroom down to the spare room in the basement to escape their endlessly annoying peals of idiotic laughter. There, he was able to blissfully listen to his music as loud as he wanted without headphones, stay up as late as he could, _and_ didn’t have to hear the two of them.

Rey’s disdain for him was fairly obvious whenever he stepped into the room and she’d immediately bristle. Hackles going up like a pissed off little kitten. It was almost comical. He spent an inordinate amount of time pretending he didn’t notice or care. 

But he would have intervened on that scene he witnessed, regardless of if it was Jyn’s daughter or not. 

People just shouldn’t hurt little girls. 

Him occasionally whacking his sister when she was being obnoxious, obviously didn’t count though. 

“Whatever,” he muttered, turning away from her and pushing open the double doors to the hallway slightly harder than intended. 

Rey Andor was a brat, plain and simple, and an _ungrateful_ brat, at that. 

***

At the Valentine’s dance, he sat in the corner of the gym on the first two seats of the pulled out bleachers, watching as his peers awkwardly swayed to a sappy Ed Sheeran song. He was pissed he had let Armie convince him to go to the stupid thing in the first place. 

Idly, he wondered if he jumped high enough if he’d be able to punch through some of the red and pink streamers that swooped down from the ceiling. 

He didn’t even know _how_ to dance, declining his mother’s offers to teach him the basics in their living room. Although from the looks of his uncoordinated schoolmates, it didn’t seem like it took much talent or rhythm. 

From here he could see Kaydel and Rey, pantomiming theatrical movements to the lyrics, in typical Giggle Twins fashion. They swirled and swayed, dramatically pretending to be holding and kissing invisible dance partners. Annoying as ever, yet still entertaining enough to make him lift the corner of his mouth, just a little. 

Frantic tapping on his leg with the back of a hand brought him out of his reverie. 

He shot a confused look to Armitage, who tried to nod inconspicuously to the opposite side of him.

Jessika Pava and a couple of her friends stood beside them bashfully. 

Her long brown hair which was usually pulled back in a low-hanging ponytail now fell over her shoulders in perfect ringlets. She wore a dark blue dress that matched her eyes, her cheeks tinted furiously with a blush, visible even in the low lighting of the gym. 

She tucked a curled ribbon of hair behind her ear.

“Hi, Ben.” 

Jessika was in his French and Math classes. The only thing he really remembered about her before this year was how she oddly wore black sneakers with white ankle socks with shorts. Like Angus from AC/DC. It was really weird.

Once a chubby little thing, she came back to school this year a little bit taller and with a delicate curve to her waist. She had also thankfully experienced a wardrobe intervention, ditching the shoes and socks for a shiny pair of gold flats. 

“Hey,” he said, tentatively, feeling instinctively like this was some kind of sneak attack. 

“Do you like Ed Sheeran?” Her tone was hopeful, followed by a chorus of soft giggles from her friends. 

“Not really,” he said casually. “I don’t follow mainstream pop music. It’s too commercialized and lacks depth.”

“Dude,” he heard Armie grunt under his breath beside him.

“Oh,” she said, a little put off. Her eyes danced across the folded bleachers at his back nervously. “That’s okay, I guess. Um, well I just thought that maybe—maybe you would want to dance anyway?” 

Before he could tell her no, Armitage shot up beside him.

“Of course he does!”

He grabbed Ben’s hand, yanking him up from his seated position, causing him to trip forward a little, nearly knocking Jessika right over. 

Her smile was so bright and excited, he would have felt like a monster telling her no now. 

And surely Jyn would forgive him.

Clearing his throat and nodding, he tried to calm his palpitating, nervous heart. 

Somewhat gracelessly, they walked together to an open space on the dancefloor, where she raised her arms to his shoulders and he put his shaky hands on her waist. His palms were hot and sweaty and he prayed they didn’t leave gross marks on her dress. 

“Did you finish your French project yet?” 

He shook his head, his nerves momentarily stealing his voice. They shuffled in a rotated circle silently after that. 

The song ended quickly enough and Ben gave an internal sigh of relief before the damn DJ (their science teacher, who apparently played weddings and bar mitzvahs on the weekends) rolled right into another slow song.

Jessika gasped, looking up at him, her eyes sparkling slightly.

“So romantic,” she whispered softly. 

Fucking _Unchained Melody_. And a cover, at that. Ben wanted to curl up and die on the dance floor. 

At the ascending bridge of the song, his attention, and everyone else’s in the gymnasium, was aptly drawn to a noisy commotion. 

He dropped his hands from Jessika’s waist as he saw his sister take her shoe off and start smacking someone on the floor with it.

Someone who was laying across the painted three-point line on the lacquered basketball court. With his sister’s best friend straddled over the person. Wildly swinging her fists, as the body below her small frame writhed to evade the blows. 

“Holy _shit!_ ” Armie laughed at his side, both he and his partner paused in their dance. “Look at that string bean go!”

Armitage had nicknamed Rey _Stringbean_ for the obvious reasons. Her skinny, lithe frame had only gotten more stretched out as she grew an inch or so over the last few months, making her the same height as his sister. It was dumb, but it made Rey mad, so they used it as much as possible. 

Ben pushed through the crowd of onlookers, shoving his way to the front. 

He grabbed Rey around the waist, lifting her flailing and fighting form right off of the poor kid on the floor. 

“I’m gonna kill him!” she screamed, her teeth bared, her hair falling out in wisps. “ _Just let me kill him!_ ”

It was the kid from the stairwell, recognizable even with the bloody nose. 

“ _What’d I fucking tell you?_ ” Ben roared, pointing a finger at the kid as he easily tucked a still fighting Rey under his other arm, her feet kicking in the air, unable to hit the floor. 

The kid raised his hands in defense. “I just asked her to dance!” he said through a clearly swollen nose. 

“He tried to _kiss_ me!” Rey screeched behind his back. Her fists beat at his butt and the back of his thighs, trying to get him to drop her. 

Ben hauled her higher up on his hip, turning from the crowd, but not before Kay slapped the kid one more time on the knee with her shoe, hurriedly slipping it back on to follow him. 

Once in the privacy of the hallway, he released Rey. She was snarling and growling like a dog.

“Jesus Christ, you’re _feral!_ ” he shouted.

“He’s not allowed to do that!” she screamed, her little face red and sweaty. It contrasted the shiny specks of silver glitter both she and Kaydel had smeared across the top of their cheeks. Her eyes started to shine slightly, brimming with tears. “I didn’t want him to do that and he did it anyway!”

Mrs. Mothma crashed through the doors in a fury.

“Unacceptable behavior, Miss Andor! I am calling your parents immediately! You are banned from all dances for the rest of the year!”

“Good!” Rey shouted back, her hands balled up into fists. “I don’t want to go to another stupid dance _ever again!_ ” she said as she swiped at her eyes angrily. 

“Yeah!” his sister challenged, crossing her arms beside her friend. “Who wants to stand in a hot, stinky gym while creeps try to kiss you _anyway!_ ”

“I hope you’re banning that fucking _piss_ -stain from future dances too!” Ben shouted, motioning towards the doors of the gym, incredulously.

“Enough with the language, Mr. Solo, or you'll be banned too.”

“Oh, who _gives a shit!_ ”

And so that was also his last dance in eighth grade. 

In the chilly front hallway, the three of them and Mrs. Mothma, waited for one of Rey’s parents to arrive. Rey and Kaydel stuffed angrily in their puffy winter coats, Ben with his cold hands shoved in his red hoodie pocket.

The door leading to the gym opened and Jessika Pava poked her head out, flooding the hallway with a shitty group dance song, the bass turned up far too loud. 

“Ben, you’re leaving?” she asked with a bit of a pout. 

“Yeah,” he said lamely, fidgeting a little. 

“Well… I’ll see you in French class then,” she said musically with a smile and a wave goodbye. 

“Ooh _French class_ ,” Kay goaded with a teasing lilt in her voice, when Jessika disappeared back into the gym. “It’s where we practice _ze kissing_.” She puckered her lips a few times, batting her eyelashes. She was lucky that Mothma was there, or else he’d have her in a headlock. 

Rey ignored them. Jaw set tight, winter hat pulled down over her hair, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and eyes fixed on the road that led to the school.

For a moment Ben felt bad for the kid. She and Kaydel had clearly put effort into their appearances for the night. Their dresses were identical except for color. Kay’s being red and Rey’s white, undoubtedly soiled and blood-spattered now, after the display in the gym. 

It was unfair that her first dance had been ruined.

Ben’s heart picked up when Jyn’s red sedan pulled up out front. 

He was first out of the door, the other two close behind him, eager to leave the looming presence of Mrs. Mothma. His hand snapped to the door handle before Rey’s could, bumping her gently out of the way to steal the shotgun seat. His shoulders visibly fell when the dome light came on and Mr. Andor’s face was illuminated instead of Jyn’s. He slid defeatedly in the front seat anyway—because, ya know, legroom—as Cassian put the car in park and got out to talk to Mrs. Mothma. 

Once Kaydel slid in and closed the door, her mitten clad hand reaching out for Rey’s as the three of them were plunged into darkness. 

“Do you think you’re gonna get grounded?” she whispered.

Rey sniffed and Ben sympathized. Being eleven was rough.

“No,” she said quietly, although not entirely convincing. 

Cassian got back in the car, silently, turning up the heat. They rolled forward.

“Rey,” he said gently. “Tell me what happened.”

Rey launched into her story, one hand still holding Kaydel’s, her other arm folded tight across her belly, looking out the window with a frown. Ben’s eyes couldn’t help but dart back and forth between her and Mr. Andor, as his gaze stayed fixed on the road. 

“—and then his _slimy_ lips were on my _face!_ ” she snapped, disgust dripping in her tone. “He almost got my mouth!” she cried out, suddenly leaning forward to strain against her seatbelt. 

“ _Teen Vogue_ says that consent is crucial!” Kaydel agreed, just as scandalized, now leaning forward as well. “You can’t just _steal_ someone’s first kiss!” 

Mr. Andor put the blinker on and pulled off to the side of the road. He set the car in park, muttering under his breath in Spanish. Unbuckling his shoulder strap, he turned to face the girls in the backseat.

“Both of you, I want you to understand something very important,” he said sternly. “At no point, _ever_ , is it okay for someone to not respect your boundaries or your bodies. _Do you hear me?_ ”

Both girls nodded, eyes wide like saucers. Mr. Andor _never_ raised his voice. 

He stole a side glance towards Ben. 

“Same for you.”

Ben nodded dumbly in agreement.

“And if someone needs to learn that by getting a broken nose, then that’s their problem, _not_ yours.”

He turned back to the steering wheel, clipping his seatbelt back in with force. 

“S-so… I’m not grounded?” Rey asked, hesitantly. 

“No way,” he said, taking a turn in the opposite direction of their homes. “We’re getting ice cream.”

“In the winter?” Ben asked.

Cassian shrugged his shoulder. “Why not?”

Outside of the scoop shop in the mall, Ben sat on the Formica tabletop next to Cassian, licking his chocolate sprinkled black-raspberry cone, thinking that ice cream any time of the year was actually a really good idea. 

Cassian spooned a banana split out of a boat as they both watched the girls laugh and dance to the piped-in music through the speakers of the nearly empty building, this close to closing. Billy Idol’s _Dancing with Myself_.

“I heard you took care of that little shit the last time he bothered Rey,” Cassian said, causing Ben’s spine to go rigid. 

He couldn’t believe she had actually _told_ someone. 

Nodding, he looked to his sister and her friend, as they licked their ice creams, jumping around goofily in and out of a line of indoor ficus trees and doing a lazy version of some dance they had made up. 

Sometimes he envied them, wishing he could be so care-free. He didn’t think he had even really been. Not like they were. He wished he could encapsulate their happiness. Their innocence. Freeze it in time. 

“I’ll always want to protect them.” 

It was so startling, honest, and true. He didn’t even know where it came from, except gurgling up straight from the bottom of his soul.

His face heated fiercely from embarrassment, bleeding up into his ears.

Cassian’s lips tipped up in a small smile and he reached over, cuffing Ben’s shoulder in a gentle squeeze. 

  
***

School was finally _over!_

Rey and Kaydel danced down the sidewalk on the walk home that day, shouting to the clouds, arms spread wide, nothing but an open, amazing summer before them. 

They were free!

In an extra dramatic flair, Kaydel took a whole handful of papers and tossed them into the air. It took the girls a while to pick them back up, but it was funny enough to make it worth it.

She loved her best friend more than she could say. 

Kaydel was _so_ funny! No one could make her laugh the way Kay could. They rode bikes together, made up choreographed dances, and took turns writing stories in notebooks about magical girls, just like them, but with the ability to move things with their minds. With strong, romantic boyfriends who never teased them and didn’t have acne or smell like feet. Mrs. Solo once french braided their hair together, and they had moved throughout the house like a conjoined unit, unable to stop their own laughter while bumping into furniture, doorways and inevitably, themselves.

When Rey slept over, they stayed up as late as their little eyes would stay open. Temples pressed together by the glow of a flashlight, as they looked through a _Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition_ Kaydel had lifted from Ben’s basement bedroom. 

“Look at how big her boobs are!” Kaydel whispered in awe, pointing. The woman was standing in the ocean, thin strips of white fabric barely covering her _enormous_ breasts. “I hope mine never get that big.”

“Me too,” Rey hushed in agreement, flipping to the next page, where the same model now rolled in the waves, covered in sand. “Yuck. Sand,” she snorted with a shake of her head. “She’s not even wearing a bathing suit top! I thought this magazine was about swimsuits?” She flipped it closed briefly to look back at the cover. “Why does Ben like to look at this stuff anyway?” she questioned, flipping through a few more pages. “It’s just a bunch of ladies standing on beaches.”

She tossed it aside as Kaydel gave a lazy shoulder shrug with an eye roll. “Who knows. All boys seem to like the same things. Big boobs,” she said, ticking off her fingers “Cars, and sports, and beer—I think. When they’re old enough.”

Rey frowned a little. She and Kaydel had snuck into Ben’s bedroom once together. It smelled like a sweaty boy and the walls were covered with posters of bands, not boobs and cars.

But Ben was weird and not like other boys anyway. She’d never breathe a word about it, but it was one of the very few— _minute_ —things she actually liked about Ben.

That and his eyes. He had pretty eyes with dreamy lashes.

And his lips were nice too, she guessed.

But the rest of him was still icky and stupid. 

One night, she had accidentally discovered she could see right into his bedroom through the basement window. She was cutting across their yards on her way home after dark and the grass in front of the pane was painted soft yellow from the indoor lights. She knelt onto it, peering in through the ground-level window. Ben sat on his bed, his mop of dark hair bent away from her as he tuned his guitar. 

When he lifted his head up, eyes focused off somewhere to the end of his room, she crouched lower and scooted back a little, making sure she remained unseen. 

Her best friend's big brother was moody and rude and wore the same red hoodie far too often to warrant the kind of attention the girls at her school showered him with. His ears were big, his nose was huge, his feet were _huger_ , and he was so tall he was practically a giraffe. She didn’t get it. 

Ben plucked at the strings of the guitar a few more times, twisting knobs, and adjusting. Rey remained still, watching. 

She had heard that he was going out with Jessika Pava and that sometimes they held hands while walking to class together. Rey thought that someday, she'd like to hold hands with a boy who walked her to class. 

Well, maybe. All the boys in her class were dogs. And so, so dumb. 

She wished she could hear what song he was playing. 

“Rey?” she heard Cassian call from their front porch, and she took off like a shot, having forgotten that he said he would wait on the porch for her. 

“Let’s spend the whole summer in the pool!” Kaydel said excitedly, turning to walk backward. “We’ll stay in all day till we’re all wrinkly and then we’ll have Cassian build us a fire and we’ll roast marshmallows every night!”

“Hot dogs _and_ marshmallows!”

“Every night!” Kaydel repeated, excitedly.

“No one’s going to let you do that,” Ben grumbled from his spot behind them. 

Rey and Kaydel both rolled their eyes at each other. 

“No one asked _you!_ ” Kay snapped.

Rey risked a glance back at him. He was wearing his uniform red hoodie, head tipped back smugly, bulky headphones over his ears, although he clearly wasn’t listening to music. His lips twitched in a smile.

“Maybe I’ll just have _Armie_ over every day and we’ll swim in the pool too.”

Rey’s eyes darted back to Kaydel as her face reddened from her brother’s teasing tone.

“So what, I won’t care,” she volleyed back defiantly. 

“Uh-huh,” Ben teased, the smile on his face getting wider. “Arm-mie,” he taunted in a high pitched voice, skipping forward a little in a Kaydel impression. “What’s your favorite movie? Do you have a favorite color? Do you like annoying girls with blonde hair and brown eyes?” He batted his eyelashes a few times for emphasis.

“Shut up, dork! I don’t like your dumb, pale friend!”

“Arm- _me_ ,” Ben continued, clearly enjoying himself. He wiggled his shoulders a little and made a giggle noise. “Do you like me? Check yes or no.”

As they turned down their street, Kaydel shrieked, powering towards her brother, slapping him on the chest a few times for good measure. “School’s over and I never even _gave_ him that note! Stay out of my stuff!”

Ben could barely speak through his own laughter as he swatted her away.

“Oh _Armie_ , I just love your copper penny hair! Please let me count your freckles.”

Rey really didn’t want to laugh, because Kaydel’s crush on Armitage was quite serious and she thought a secret, but Ben was also being very funny. She instead pressed her lips together tightly.

“Oh yeah? Well, everyone knows Jessika dumped you because you’re a bad kisser!” 

Ben laughed, grabbing his sister's wrists, swinging her to stumble into the grass of a nearby yard. 

“I never went out with Jessika, she just told everyone I was her boyfriend.”

Rey thought that wasn’t very nice or fair of Jessika. She wouldn’t want someone saying she was their girlfriend if she really wasn’t. 

But she needed to defend Kaydel from Ben’s chafing. 

“Who would lie about being _your_ girlfriend? She must be mental!”

Ben quirked his eyebrow her way. 

“What was that, Stringbean?”

Rey’s cheeks flared. She _hated_ that nickname.

“She must be insane. I bet her pajamas are straight jackets!”

They had finally managed to make their way up the steps to the Solo home. Kaydel powered in through the front door with a condescending tut, dropping her backpack to the ground with a thud.

“Ben’s just as delusional,” she said, walking straight back to the kitchen and pulling open the fridge to look inside.

Rey scowled at Ben in the entryway. He had finally shaved off that ratty mustache, thank God. 

It almost made him look better. Almost.

“He’s still dumb enough to think that one day Jyn will see him as something other than the creepy boy who lives next door and gives her _rocks_ ,” Kaydel said snidely, after chugging from a Sprite can and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Shut up,” Ben snapped, his demeanor no longer playful.

“You know what Mom says, don’t dish it if you can’t take it.” Kay looked to Rey. “I swear, he’d bottle her farts like perfume and wear it if he could.”

Something in Rey’s stomach knotted in a funny way. She felt… mad.

“Jyn would never like a boy like you!” she cried, offended. Her body felt hot, shaky. “Not when she has Cassian, who is nice and funny and kind! You’re too young and—and _mean!_ ”

Ben let out an amused huff, stepping closer and lowering his head towards hers.

“Oh yeah?” he said quietly, his tone low. “Remember that when you’re calling me _Daddy_ in a few years.”

Rey’s hand snapped up, slapping across his cheek.

He stepped back, slightly stunned. Rey’s own mouth dropped open from shock. She watched his dark eyes narrow.

“Get out,” he growled.

Rey felt like her lungs couldn’t get enough air in them, as she tugged the front door back open roughly, storming past him on her way out. 

She _hated_ Ben Solo! 

She didn’t go back over to the Solo’s again for an entire week. She didn’t want to see Ben’s idiotic face just yet. 

But then, the absolute _worst_ thing happened. 

She had felt a little funny in the morning when she got up, groggily padding to the bathroom and rubbing her eyes. 

When she sat down to pee, she screamed at the top of her lungs when she looked down and saw that the white cotton patch of her underwear was covered in blood.

“Rey!” Both Cassian and Jyn called, their voices panicked as their footfalls thundered down the hallway.

“I’m _bleeding!_ ” she screeched, hysterically. “Cassian, _don’t come in! I’m on the toilet! I’m on the toilet and I’m bleeding!_ ”

Jyn gently pushed open the door, slipping in.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, calmly. “You’ve just started your period. It’s _okay_ , it’s completely natural.”

“ _How is it natural to bleed out of your butt?!_ ”

Jyn sighed deeply. “Oh dear,” she mumbled to herself, crouching down to reach into the cabinet under the sink. She pulled out a plastic-wrapped square and handed it off to Rey. “Take a shower and I’ll bring you some fresh clothes. When you get dressed, open that up and put it in your underwear, the sticky side down. Leave your pajamas on the floor, I’ll wash them for you.”

Rey nodded, feeling slightly calmer. 

“How long is this going to last?”

“A couple of days.” 

“Days?!” she repeated, shocked.

“Yeah… none of the older girls or the nuns at the home talked to you about getting a period?”

Shaking her head, Rey had never felt more like a helpless kid. 

“Okay, well, I’ll tell you all about it downstairs. Do you want Cassian to make us waffles for breakfast?”

Rey nodded with a sniff. 

“This only happens once, right?”

Jyn made a face and Rey’s heart fell. 

“More like once a month.”

“What?” Rey squeaked.

“Yeah… for most of your life.”

“ _What?!_ ”

A few hours later, she pushed open the gate leading to the Solo’s pool. 

“Rey!” Kaydel yelled; hair slicked back on her head, floating around on a giant inflatable slice of pizza. She crashed into the water, emerging at the edge as Rey sat down, slipping her feet into the cool pool. Kay’s arms rested on the cement edge.

“Where’s your suit?”

Rey heaved a deep sigh. 

“Today is the worst day ever, Kay.”

The sliding door to the house opened and Ben emerged.

Rey felt her eyes bulge and a blush rise high on her cheeks.

He wore a pair of black swim trunks and sunglasses. _Nothing. Else_.

His chest was totally freaking bare and he was _not_ as skinny as last year. 

“‘sup, Stringbean.”

Reclining into one of the deck chairs, he instantly clapped his headphones over his ears and Rey wondered if he had forgotten all about the slap she had been obsessing over for the last several days. 

Kaydel looked at her expectantly from the water, eyebrows raised. 

She leaned in. “I got my period today. I didn’t even know what one was. It was _so_ embarrassing!” she whispered, watching Kaydel’s eyes grow wider.

“What? I haven’t gotten mine yet! What’s it like?”

Rey frowned a little. 

“Messy and gross.”

Kaydel pushed up, struggling a little to pull herself out of the pool before seating herself beside Rey, smattering the cement with small droplets of water as they rolled down her back and arms. 

“My Mom made me read _Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret_ last year, but it was a super old copy from the library and the girls had to wear these belts to hold up their pads,” she looked down at Rey’s lap. “Are you wearing a pad right now?” she whispered.

Rey nodded, stealing a glance Ben’s way, to make sure he wasn’t listening. His face was tipped to the sun, chin bobbing gently to whatever he was listening to.

“Do you think you’ll wear tampoons?” Kaydel mispronounced.

Tampons. Something Jyn mentioned that morning.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly back. “I don’t really want anything shoved _up there_ , you know what I mean?”

The freckled bridge of Kaydel’s nose wrinkled a little. “Yeah,” she agreed. “This means you can have sex and babies now, you know.”

Rey felt her face roar to life with a blush.

“I don’t _want_ to have sex _or_ babies! Why does this even need to happen?” she whined, shoulders drooping, and she scrunched up her eyes towards the sky. 

Kaydel sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Want me to ask my Mom for some money so we can ride our bikes to the store and get Slush Puppies?”

Rey perked up at that and grinned. “Heck yeah!”

Kay stood, leaving a wet patch of dark cement beside Rey, as she remained seated at the pool. 

Across the way, Ben pulled his headphones off.

Wordlessly, he stood, coming to the edge of the deep end before diving in.

She watched his dark hair wave under the water, stripes of shadows and light rippling over his skin. He broke the surface in the shallow end, giving his head a jerk and sending some glittering droplets of water flying. His ears stuck out fiercely through his wet hair. 

He jumped, launching onto the pizza slice floaty, nearly slipping back into the pool. 

Her eyes latched to a faint line of dark hair on his belly that led to the band of his shorts. She thought she might gouge them out of her own head for being such traitors. 

The sliding door opened again, Kaydel clad in shorts and a t-shirt, a crisp bill in her hand. 

“Let’s go!”

Rey stood, grabbing her flip-flops from where she had tossed them in the grass.

“Tell my future wife I miss her but I’ll see her soon!” Ben called, once she got to the foot of the pool.

She swore if she thought she could spit at him and hit him from there, she would.

She settled for upturning her middle finger towards him, before exiting the yard. 

“Unacceptable behavior, Miss Andor!” he shouted in his best Mrs. Mothma voice as the gate clanked closed behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fantastic [@reylographer](https://twitter.com/reylographer) blessed us again with a scene from this story and I could die a little every time I look at it! Shirtless Ben in "Rey-vision"!  
> 
> 
> [Knife](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quU_TyL_xc0)  
> Chapter title
> 
> I won't bother posting an Ed Sheeran song. Just pick one, they'll all work, lol.


	3. I love you, I hate you, I'm on the fence, it all depends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hormonal teens being hormonal
> 
> All the thanks to [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn)  
> and [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) for all of their beta work and genuine help.

[ ](https://imgur.com/flKzcVS)

Summer with its long exciting days and relaxing tiki-torch lit nights, never seemed to last as long as the school year did. 

Rey spent as much time as possible in the cool blue water of the Solo’s pool. She and Kaydel got matching swimsuits, with a rainbow that slashed from the shoulder, across their bellies, and to their opposite hips. 

They weren’t quite identical though, due to the fact that what seemed like overnight from getting her own period, Kaydel was a full A-cup, well on her way to a B, and Rey was still able to go without a bra at all if she wanted.

They bought two pairs of red-tinted sunglasses from a girl’s clothing magazine. Rey’s in the shape of hearts, Kay’s the shapes of lips. They didn’t really keep the sun out of their eyes, but they looked cool, so they wore them almost every day. 

When they weren’t in the pool, they were dancing on the porch of Rey’s house or doing handstands or some type of gymnastic routine in the grass to strategically crafted summer playlists on their joint Spotify account. Cassian grilled their dinners and Jyn was up to her elbows in soil, vegetables, and flowers. Meals were usually on the back deck, happily exchanging stories about the day amongst a chorus of bird-songs or crickets and the tinkling of ice cubes in cold tea. 

Nights were spent snuggled under a blanket, at either of their houses, watching movies until their eyes drifted shut.

It was perfect. 

Helped by the fact that Ben Solo was noticeably around less and less. 

After securing his driving permit and saving enough money to add a trailer to Mr. Solo’s truck, he started mowing lawns all over town. Up early with the sun, home late, usually passing through on his way to the kitchen to pound back a sports drink before heading off to his room.

She checked in through his window once or twice on her way back to her yard and found him passed out, face down across his bed.

By July, his skin had become a dark and lovely shade of tan that glistened with sweat in the hot sun. 

She knew because he never wore a _freakin’_ shirt anymore! 

And he had gotten obnoxiously _muscley_. To the point in which she could count formations in the grooves of his stomach, which was irritating, given that she never _actually_ wanted to look. 

“Ugh, he thinks he’s Jacob from Twilight, I swear,” Kaydel rolled her eyes from under her garnet-hued lenses, as Ben unceremoniously and _loudly_ clanked in through the gate to the pool area, diving straight in with his basketball shorts on. Rey watched as he swam along the bottom of the tiles, right under her floating chair. 

“You’re not supposed to wear regular clothes in the pool!” Kaydel chastised him with a scoop of water flung his way when he came up for air. 

She screeched when he flipped her pool float over with a splash as she tumbled into the water, and Ben swam away with a hearty laugh. 

Finally being allowed to watch Twilight had been kind of a big deal. 

Mr. Solo was in the tv room when they had started it, the two of them so excited, a freshly opened bag of Doritos between them. About halfway through the movie and their commentary, his focus drifted up from his laptop. His glasses hung off the tip of his nose, a confused frown across his face as a sparkly man spoke soft threats to a girl who couldn’t seem to close her mouth.

“What the fuck are we watching?”

He got up shortly after with a groan, mumbling about needing a drink.

Later, in August, they discovered Astrology.

“You’re a Pisces,” Kaydel told her as they sat at the Solo’s kitchen table, Kaydel at the head, Rey in the seat to her right. The sun had just set and the room was lit by the warm glowing light above the sink. Kay’s glittery pink-tipped finger skimmed across the print of the thin paperback magazine spread out before her. They were sharing what was left of the tiramisu Mrs. Solo had made the day before. An amazing layered dessert of cake, cocoa, and mascarpone. Kaydel said she sometimes made it with rum on very special occasions. 

They were learning all they could about signs through a book they bought for 99¢ in line at the grocery store. 

“I’m a Leo,” Kaydel said proudly, as Ben slipped into the kitchen from the entrance of his downstairs lair.

He was wearing a t-shirt for once, _thank God!_

Kaydel listed off the traits of a Leo, as Rey watched Ben fold in half when he opened the refrigerator, his face lit brightly by the glow of the interior.

He had grown his hair out a little. It hung over his forehead in a way that Rey could only describe as “swoopy”. It caused him to flick it back a lot with a slight head jerk to keep it out of his eyes. Like right then, as she watched him decide on what to eat. 

Shutting the door with a dissatisfied frown, he disappeared behind Rey, she assumed to make his way to the tv room down the hall. Much to her surprise, he pulled out the chair beside her and dropped into it.

He smelled good. Like freshly rinsed body wash. 

It made her think of the one time she reached into the Solo’s shower and gently squeezed the dark bottle with a mountain top sticker, letting the crisp, cool smell puff into her nostrils, before she realized that what she was doing was totally weird. 

But she liked the smell of it. A lot.

“What’s your sign, Ben?” Kaydel asked on Rey’s other side from the head of the table, drawing her attention back that way. 

“Minotaur,” Ben replied with disinterest. 

Below her, there was the clink of a fork to a plate. She looked down just in time to see Ben’s hand snake back towards him, her stolen fork loaded with cake and fluffy cream. He had it lifted up and in his mouth before she could swat it out of his hand. He turned the fork down against his lips, drawing it out slowly, making sure to pull off all the frosting, his grin teasing.

“Thanks ‘bean,” he said, passing the clean fork back to her. She slapped it on the table with a frown. 

“Ben!” Kaydel sighed, exasperated. “Minotaur is _not_ a real Zodiac sign!”

Ben stood, leaning over the table a little, the warmth from his body heating Rey’s shoulder.

“None of them are real,” he whispered, grabbing the fork once more and stealing another bite quickly with a self-satisfied chuckle as Rey, again, tried to swat it down.

“Stop stealing my dessert, douche!”

“Eat it faster,” he said with a full mouth and a shrug, heading towards the hallway.

She should have elbowed him in his stupid washboard stomach. 

Kaydel huffed a little laugh, her finger still pressed to the page. “Oh, he is _such_ a Scorpio.”

Later that night, after Kaydel fell asleep, Rey flipped through the thin, paper pages of the magazine, stopping at the “Love Matches” chart for Pisces. 

Scorpio: ❤❤❤❤❤

Her stomach did a little involuntary flip. 

The most exciting event, however, happened right before they were supposed to go back to school.

The “FOR SALE” sign in front of the house across the street was replaced by one that said, “SOLD”.

Rey and Kaydel sat on their bikes in her driveway, sweating Slush Puppies in hand, as the moving truck pulled up. A group of men dressed in green t-shirts with lettering on them, went back and forth from inside the house, carrying various boxes and large pieces of furniture. 

One of the men was young and had light brown, wild hair, and a handsome face.

“I _have_ to talk to him!” Kaydel announced decidedly with a stern nod, placing her cup to the sidewalk. “He could be my soulmate!”

“He’d have to be an Aries, Saggitarius, or a Libra for it to work,” Rey said seriously. They had both memorized each other’s most and least compatible signs. 

In the end, they decided that personally delivering freshly made lemonade was their best option for getting his attention. 

Back inside the house, they realized they didn’t have nearly enough lemons for lemonade. As they discussed what they could use instead, Ben and Armitage came in through the back sliding door, their tank tops darkened around the collars and armpits from sweat, breath heavy.

Ben was seriously, like, five shades darker than Armie now.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t place, even as a Freshman,” Armitage continued on with their conversation from outside, ignoring Rey and Kaydel as he plopped down at the kitchen table. 

Ben opened the fridge and tossed him a Gatorade, before taking the cap off of his own, gulping nearly half of it down at once. Rey watched the sharp bump in his stretched neck move with the motion, as Kaydel nudged her hip gently. 

“Ask Ben if he’ll go to the store and buy us some lemons,” she whispered and Rey looked back at her like she was insane.

“Why _me?_ ”

“Because if I ask he’ll definitely say no.”

Which was probably true.

“Giggle Twins,” Ben’s deep voice said suddenly, causing them to jump. “Mom said to make sure you finish that deli meat in the fridge for lunch today.”

Right. This was a perfect opportunity. Just casually bring it up and see what he says.

“I can only eat deli meat sandwiches with lemonade!” Rey blurted out and immediately wanted to slap herself in the face.

Both Ben and Armie looked at her like she had lost her mind. 

“Weird, but okay,” Armie said with a shrug, lifting his bottle to finish off the blue liquid.

“There’s a lemon right there,” Ben said as if she were blind or perhaps stupid, or both.

“It’s not enough,” Kaydel jumped in to argue.

“What are you talking about? Cut the thing in half, squeeze it in a glass, mix it with water and sugar. Do you really not remember how to make lemonade?”

Kaydel made a small, annoyed sound in the back of her throat. 

“We want to make more than just one glass. We’re very thirsty!”

Ben stared at his sister blankly.

“They’re up to something,” Armie stated plainly.

“Oh, they’re definitely up to something,” Ben agreed, looking between them suspiciously. 

Kaydel rolled her eyes to the ceiling and let a sigh drop her shoulders dramatically.

“Beeeen _-nuh_ ,” she whined. Ben visibly cringed at the sound of his name drawn out in a high-pitched plea. “Please just bring us to the store!”

“Can’t. State law. No passengers till October.”

Suddenly, Armie jolted straight up, as if there were a spring hidden on his seat. His gaze was set past the kitchen to the front of the house. 

“Who _is that?_ ”

He bolted out of the kitchen with his eyes firmly locked forward, leaving the remaining three to exchange confused glances before following him curiously. 

They all peered out of the Solo’s front-facing bay window as a really pretty girl stood in the driveway of the house across the street, her elbows high in the air as she secured her black hair in a ponytail. She wore cut-off shorts, an old T-shirt with the sleeves shorn off, and a neon purple sports bra underneath that peaked out a bit through the side. The back of her head was half shaved below her ears and she had multiple ear piercings.

She reminded Rey of Jyn in a strange way. As if that’s also what she would have looked like as a teenager, a little rebellious, but mostly beautiful. 

Armie bit his knuckle with a grin, reaching over to smack Ben in the center of his chest a few times.

“I get it, I see her,” Ben said flatly.

Kaydel shot Rey a look of disapproval and Rey rolled her eyes in solidarity. Armitage was basically that cartoon wolf that whistled and pulled his own tongue out whenever a new girl caught his attention. It caused Kaydel’s crush on him to fade quickly out of exhaustive jealousy. 

Which was unfortunate, him being a Sagittarius and all, very compatible with Kaydel’s Leo. 

Another girl appeared beside the other in the driveway, shorter, younger. 

Both Rey and Kaydel gasped.

It was their first glimpse of the Tico sisters. 

A few days later, The Solo’s and Andor-Erso’s hosted a joint cookout, welcoming the new neighbors.

Upstairs in her bedroom, she, Kaydel, and Rose, the youngest of the Tico sisters, sat in a small circle.

“Have you ever kissed a boy?” Kaydel asked, her brown eyes wide with intensity. Interviewing a potential new friend was not to be taken lightly. 

She was a Capricorn, so it had to be just right for this to work.

“No,” Rose answered. She was wearing a bright two-piece set of a button-down shirt and shorts, covered in oranges and green leaves. “Have you?”

Both she and Kaydel shook their heads. 

“I think I will before next summer though”, Kaydel said firmly. “I just have to figure out who I want it to be with.”

“Are there any cute boys at our school?” Rose asked hopefully.

“Not a single one,” Rey answered firmly. Rose’s shoulders drooped a little.

“Are the teachers nice?”

“Nope,” Kaydel said with a hard pop of the ‘p’.

“Are the dances fun?”

She and Kay exchanged glances.

“We don’t know, we got kicked out of the first one last year because Rey beat up a boy.”

Rose’s eyes went wide. They told her an abbreviated version of the story and she looked enthralled. 

“Wow,” she said once they finished. 

“Jyn told me, my body, my choice. And that even means for when I’m ready to have sex.”

Rose’s eyes got so big they looked like they could pop out of her head.

“I’m not allowed to talk about sex,” she whispered quickly, eyes darting to the door as if one of her parents would kick it in just from the whispered mention of the word.

“We won’t tell if you don’t,” Kaydel said, firmly, seriously. Rose nodded. “Rey’s parents are young and cool, and probably have sex all the time,” Rey cringed at the thought, obviously not really wanting to think about it. “And Jyn told her that when she thinks she’s _really_ ready, she will bring Rey to the doctor for birth control. She’s _awesome_. My Mom said I needed to wait until I was older, but like, the whole point of getting a period is to make babies, which is a direct result of having sex, so I’m really not sure what her problem is.” 

“We’re not allowed to have sex before we’re married,” Rose still whispered, eyes once again nervously sliding to the door. “But to be honest, I don’t think I really care if I ever have it. I’ve gone this long without it and if I really need to wait that long, it must be something pretty awful, to begin with.”

“Yeah,” Rey nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think I’m just gonna, like, _never_ have it,” she said with her lip slightly curled and a shrug of her shoulders. “I’d rather just, I dunno, go skydiving or do something much cooler. I’ll probably just stick with kissing.” 

Later, once the sun had set and the string lights on the patio roared to life, Rey looked up just as Ben reached over and handed Paige Tico a red solo cup with the biggest smile she had ever seen him wear on his face.

It felt like her heart had popped out of her ribcage and rolled to a stop in the grass before her.

  
  
  
  


***

  
  


Paige Tico had eyes so dark, Ben would have sworn they were black. 

She liked a lot of the same music he did and had even shared with him a few new artists he had never heard of. 

“This is _Vagabon_ ,” she smiled slightly, curling some hair behind his ear, making way for the earbud she placed in a moment later. The bus he was forced to take now jostled, bumping their shoulders together.

He was originally pissed when he found out he could no longer take his father’s truck every day, despite having his license. But now? 

He’d give up his license completely if it meant touching shoulders with Paige Tico every morning. 

She was a Sophomore, but for some nonsensical reason, she had decided to be his friend. 

Mr. Tico wouldn’t let her hang out at a boys’ house, so any time they wanted to spend together outside of school it had to be at her house, in a common area where they could be seen at all times. Mr. Tico often watched him with a scowl, either from the kitchen, the dining room table, or his recliner.

“And they can’t figure out why I hate it here so much,” she sighed, walking with him at lunch one day. She had originally shaved her head in an act of rebellion but kept it now because it was easier to deal with. The multiple earrings in her ears were constantly being clucked at by Mrs. Tico, and several times she had changed her outfit into something else entirely, once they got to school. “They don’t realize that the more they try to control me, the further they push me away. I’m never looking back when I turn 18. I mean it.”

Ben felt like he understood that. His relationship with his parents was never exactly what he would call smooth. Kaydel was the good kid. The precocious, likable, and charming one. Ben was… Ben—surly, introverted, sarcastic, but not in a funny family-sitcom kind of way. He knew they loved him, but sometimes he questioned whether or not they truly liked him. 

Further into the school year, Armitage finally gave up on his not-so-subtle attempts to win Paige’s affection. Ben thought that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t interested in him because she was interested in someone else. He analyzed every interaction they had, trying to determine if that someone was him.

He and Armie made the track team, along with one other Freshman that year. 

Poe Dameron was a short, loud, constantly smiling jock who managed to catch the attention of just about every girl in the Freshman class. 

Ben wanted to _kiss_ him for taking up the burden of the resident heartthrob. Poe accepted his crown and title gracefully. Winking and flirting his way down the halls as Ben trailed behind, blissfully overlooked and left alone. 

He knew his slow rising crush on Paige had become serious when instead of manipulating and navigating his way to a seat beside Jyn at their annual holiday party dinner, he gladly joined the Tico girls, Rey, and Kaydel in the tv room instead. He didn’t even care that Armie’s family was out of town and he was horribly outnumbered by girls. 

The night had seemed perfect, a feeling of warmth and comfort resting in his belly as they all laughed and played silly parlor games until it was time to exchange gifts.

This year, his mother had decided that Secret Santa would be fitting, since the girls were older and could participate with the $20 gift limit.

He accepted his gift, a Joy Division t-shirt given to him from Mr. Andor, with a thank you before he pulled his own wrapped present from where he had tucked it beside his leg on the couch. Rising, he crossed the room and handed it to Rey, who sat beside Kaydel, distracted in opening her own gift.

She took it gingerly with wide eyes, her lip-gloss lacquered little mouth hanging open. It was kind of cute.

Ben had stood in the aisle of the local book store for nearly half an hour, flipping through pages, checking weights, examining line spacing, and paper texture of each journal they had to offer. Finally, he had decided on a gorgeous looking thing with a supple leather binding and the perfect paper stock. She could use heavy ink, pencil, even markers in it if she wanted to. It was actually $25, but he figured Rey deserved it. He gave her a lot of shit and despite her occasionally cantankerous attitude, she was a good kid. 

She doodled on everything. All her books, the corner of her homework pages, her notes. And she and Kay had been passing ratty, spiral-bound notebooks between them for ages to write their silly little stories in. He figured she might appreciate a decent journal.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, before returning back to his seat next to Paige on the couch. 

He watched as she tore into the holiday paper, her fingers slowing down to nearly a stop as they graced the soft leather. Pushing apart the paper, she exposed the cover. The act finally caught his sister's attention as she looked onto Rey’s lap with a frown.

Rey lifted the journal, her thumb flipping the pages gently.

“He gave you a blank book?” Kaydel asked.

“A journal,” Rey corrected gently. The small smile growing on her face both relieved and warmed him.

She liked it. 

Smile beaming now, she thanked him from across the room, hugging it to her chest. 

  
  
  
  


***

Rey sat on her bed, long after she was supposed to be asleep. Legs folded, journal open to the first page in her lap. 

She could write anything she wanted. A story, perhaps. Or draw a landscape of the pretty winters night outside, with everyone’s holiday lights strung up, glowing against the snow. Or maybe a self-portrait. Maybe she should write a poem about how happy she was feeling and how great the holiday party had been this year. About how she got to wear a new pretty red jumper, black leggings, and flats or that Kaydel had straightened her hair and let her use her lip gloss. 

Nervously, she picked up her pen. 

She decided she was going to write what was truly in her heart.

_I think I am in love with Ben Solo._

  
  


***

  
  


_**I hate Ben Solo with every bit of my soul!!!** _

Rey wrote angrily, her pen pressing into the page a little harder than usual.

She sat back, letting a nasty little breath push out of her nostrils.

There. That felt better. 

Earlier that night, the three girls were getting ready for the Valentine’s dance in Kaydel’s room. Rose’s phone pumped out some of their favorite dance songs as they sang along, singing into a random hairbrush here, shimmying their hips a little bit there.

This dance wasn’t going to be like last years, they decided. This year, they had strength in numbers. With the three of them together there was no way some idiot boy was going to spoil their fun!

“G.T.,” Ben’s voice called from the hallway, still deep, and louder than their music on full blast. “Let’s go. I got shit to do!”

He had changed “Giggle Twins” into “Giggle Triplets” and then shortened it to G.T.

Very creative.

They piled into the backseat, the front passenger side being occupied by Armitage, per usual.

“And the IBTC is en route!” he announced as the car started. Ben snorted a small laugh.

“What’s IBTC?” Rose mouthed leaning forward to her and Kay from her spot behind Armie.

“Itty bitty titty committee,” Kaydel said with a bored tone. “First of all, I’m almost a B-cup. Second, get a new joke.”

“Third,” Rey added. “Don’t talk about my boobs, you creep.”

That made both the boys throw their heads back and cackle.

“Not all boys just care about boobs,” Rose tried to argue, weakly.

“Uh, speaking as a teenaged boy,” Ben chuckled, turning the wheel and pulling into the middle school driveway. “I can assure you. _We do_.”

Rey looked down at her barely noticeable bumps and felt her gut rot.

“Get out,” Ben barked when they stopped at the curb. “Be out here right at 9 pm. I’m not a fucking chauffeur, despite what Mom and Dad think.”

The girls shifted down the backseat and out of the passenger side door one by one.

“Hey Stringbean,” Ben said, causing her to pause just as she was about to get out, one foot on the pavement.

Her heart floated in her chest. She thought maybe he was going to tell her she looked pretty. That he liked her dress or that girls with super small boobs were _actually_ his preference. 

His head was tipped back at a playful angle, that knot in his throat jutting out, his hair brushed back from the cluster of moles by his ear she thought about touching sometimes. He smiled a little.

“Don’t be afraid to break some noses if someone gets handsy in there tonight.”

Her mouth tucking into an involuntary smile, she gave a small nod. 

Turns out, she had nothing to worry about. The dance was boring. They played the same dumb songs they played on the radio and nothing the girls actually wanted to dance to. The sixth-grade girls were all bopping around like jumping beans while the sixth-grade boys watched. Eighth-grade girls were attached to the faces of eighth-grade boys.

The three of them and the rest of the seventh-grade girls sat across the gym very far away from the seventh-grade boys. 

Finally, a bigger boy from Kaydel’s History class decided to break the chasm between the groups. He crossed the gym like it was a battlefield. He stood before Kaydel, slightly shifty-eyed, and she looked up at him, back straight, face haughty.

“Hello Christopher,” she said cooly. 

“Uh, hey Kay,” his eyes darted back to a group of boys who were huddled together by the bleachers, staring. “How are you?”

Kaydel gave him a flat look. “Did you come over here to ask me to dance?” Point blank. Direct. It was the Leo in her.

“What? No,” he said, a little flustered. That caused Kaydel’s eyebrows to jump up. “I mean, if you want to dance, I’ll dance with you, b-but,” he started to sweat a little from his nervousness. “B-Bobby wanted to know if you guys wanted to ditch the dance and go to his house instead.”

The three girls exchanged glances. 

“Why would we do that?” Rey asked. She could already tell by the gleam in Kaydel’s eye that she wholeheartedly thought it was a much better idea than hanging out here, by the water fountain.

“Because his parents aren’t home and we can play whatever music we want, as loud as we want.”

Glances among the three of them again. 

“A-and,” he amended, “he has a VR game that’s pretty sick and his parents have a full bar they don’t lock up.”

“Who else is going?” Rose asked, surprising Rey entirely. She couldn’t actually think this was a good idea, right? Her parents would never let her leave the house again if they got caught!

“Just you guys, Petra and Katy, for girls. Me, Wex, Jarrard, Mac, DJ, and Bobby for boys.”

Kaydel liked Bobby and, for God knows what reason, Rose had a crush on DJ. Not great looking odds for them staying in this stuffy gym, by the looks of it. 

“We need a moment to discuss,” Kaydel declared. Chris nodded, turning to plod his way back across the dancefloor.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Kaydel jumped closer.

“We have to go! If I don’t kiss Bobby, I’ll die!”

Rey rolled her eyes. Great. 

“How are we even going to get out of the school? There are teachers and chaperones at every exit,” Rey stated with a skeptical sweep of her upturned palm. 

“Not in the bathrooms,” Rose piped up, cheerfully. Kaydel’s grinned widened and Rey’s heart sank.

“Guys, we will be in so much trouble if we get caught.”

“We won’t get caught,” Kaydel said quickly, a plan obviously blooming in her brain. “We’ll each go in separately, and leave through the backdoor of the locker room. We can prop it open with a rock. As long as we’re back here before the dance ends, no one will even know.”

She supposed that _could_ work, theoretically.

“We don’t even know where Bobby lives,” she argued, hoping somehow she could still sway them.

“It’s gotta be close. None of us can drive.”

Damn it! Why did Rose have to be so freaking logical!

“Rey, _please_ ,” Kaydel begged, pouting her lip and blinking her big brown eyes. “If I don’t get my lips on Bobby, I don’t know what I’ll do!”

“And,” Rose added softly, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ll probably never get to go to a party for real. Like, ever,” she added sadly.

Rey looked between her friends and felt a tug on her heart. This didn’t feel right and her instincts screamed up at her fiercely through her belly. 

“Fine,” she conceded. “Let’s go.”

***

She _told_ them they needed to leave by 8:30, but nobody wanted to listen! Potentially, they could have made it back in time, even with their stupid reroute. 

Maybe, if they were lucky, their parents would take pity on them and bury them side-by-side.

It was the only hope that she had left as they trudged through the hardly recognizable path through the thicket they thought was somewhere between Bobby’s house and the school.

Jarrard insisted he knew a shortcut through the park that lay between the schoolyard and Bobby’s home. It was clear they were lost when what was a five-minute walk there turned into a twenty-minute hike home through a barely worn trail. It was confirmed when that trail spit them out on some random cul-de-sac.

Who knows what time it was when they finally reached a recognizable street that headed towards the school.

No one was speaking. Having already squabbled and shouted at each other now was the time for silent self-reflection. And perhaps funeral plans. 

As they turned the corner to the main parking lot, Jimmy groaned. 

“Oh no… I can see my Dad and he looks _pissed!_ ”

Rey’s eyes scanned the lot, not seeing Jyn, Cassian, or the Solo’s cars.

Relief washed over her. Maybe they weren’t gone as long as they thought. Maybe Bobby’s parents forgot to change the clocks at the last daylight savings and they arrived right before the kids inside the dance were about to spill out into the parking lot. Maybe they were just a little early and most of the parents hadn’t gotten there yet. Maybe they could survive this yet.

Behind them, tires screeched on the pavement.

The pure terror in her friends’ eyes, wide, with their straight backs lit up by headlights, would forever be burned into her brain. They didn’t even need to turn around to know that they were all screwed. 

“GET IN!” Ben shouted.

Silently, they all piled in the backseat, clinging close to one another for comfort. Ben spun the car around and threw his phone back at Kaydel. 

“Call Mom and tell her I found you.”

Shakily, Kaydel hit the contact for her Mom, holding the phone up to her face with a grimace.

Mrs. Solo’s yells could be heard clear as day through the silent car. She hung up with the barked promise of: “We will talk when you get home!”

“What the fuck were you guys thinking?!” Ben raged, his eyes darting from the rearview mirror to the road. His knuckles gripped the steering wheel to a point where it looked like it could maybe bend. “If you’re going to do dumb shit, be smart enough not to get caught!”

“The dance was lame! We just went to a classmate’s house, it wasn’t even a big deal!” Kaydel snapped back. “Nothing even happened!” Which wasn’t entirely true. Kaydel got dared to kiss Bobby in a game of Truth or Dare and he had put his tongue in her mouth. 

“Oh, _nothing happened?_ ” Ben mocked back, irritability. “You’re right, nothing happened for the rest of us either, because we’ve been driving around town for the last hour, looking for _you_ jerks!” He dragged his hand through his hair and shook his head.

“You know,” he continued with a bitter little laugh and pointed back to Kaydel. “I expect it from her, but you two?” He nodded to Rose, “I hope you memorized what the outside world looked like, because I’m pretty sure you’re never leaving your house again, and you?” His eyes moved over to Rey in the rearview’s reflection. “You’ll be lucky if they don’t demand a refund and send you packing.”

A fear unlike one Rey had ever felt before, clenched her heart.

Ben swung into the Solo’s driveway and got out, slamming the car door behind him, leaving the three of them in the back. 

“I’m sorry,” Kaydel whispered before she opened her own door and slowly slid out, Mrs. Solo already on the porch, hard jaw and frown deep. 

Rey passed the large bushes that divided the front half of the Solo/Andor-Erso properties. From there, she could see Cassian waiting on the porch for her, like he always did after dark. 

A knot formed tight and high in her throat when Jyn stepped out from behind him.

“What were you thinking?” Jyn asked, her voice the sharpest Rey had ever heard it. She hadn’t even waited for Rey to step inside the house. 

Rey swallowed and hung her head, her eyes heavy with tears. “I’m sorry,” her lip quivered with irrepressible fear.

“No one knew where you were!” Cassian’s voice had a tight edge to it. “Not the teachers, not the other students! You just disappeared and didn’t tell anyone where you were going! What if something terrible happened and none of us knew where you were?”

Her stomach was clenching in a raw and awful way, her lungs felt compressed, unable to let air in. Terror was tightening her skin, vibrating her muscles, frosting her bones. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Her face pinched as hot tears started to flood down her face.

“You can’t do things like that,” Jyn snapped. “You can’t go off to places and not tell anyone. Everyone was _so_ scared! Leia was all by herself! Han isn’t home and Ben and Cassian were driving all over looking for you. Mrs. Tico was a _mess!_ ”

“I’m sorry,” Rey whined out, her shoulders curling in, and hands clenching into stressed fists as she began to sob in earnest. She clamped her eyes shut and dropped her head. “Please don’t send me back,” she pleaded.

“What?” Jyn breathed softly.

Rey struggled to push out her words from the deep, air stealing gasps that were taking over her body. “I’ll be good. I’ll never do it again, _I swear!_ Please. _Please!_ Just don’t send me _back!_ ” she croaked tightly, desperately.

Snot and tears were making her face cold, as she looked up and saw the horrified faces of Jyn and Cassian. She cried harder, gulping for air. They couldn’t even stand the sight of her. No one could. She was rotten. Not even her own Mum wanted her because she had seen it and now she had messed this up too. 

Cassian’s arms wrapped tightly around her as he fell to his knees on the porch. 

“Mi corazoncito,” he said softly, holding her close, petting at her hair. “Why would you think such a thing?” Rey howled freely, her tummy tight as she pushed her face into the shirt on his shoulder. She couldn’t speak. The wracks to her body were too violent now, the tears too flooding, the air too thin.

“Rey,” Jyn’s fingers were in the hair at the temple, then rubbing across her trembling shoulders. “Rey, I need you to look at me.”

Rey slowly raised her face to look up and could see through blurred vision, that Jyn was crying. Her face tight, and cheeks wet. She looked over and saw that Cassian was too. He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, one arm still locked around her shoulders, and Jyn grabbed her by the face with both hands.

“I am very upset with you right now, but I need for you to know this,” she said sternly, slowly. Her mouth was twitching down at the corners, her wet eyes beginning to tint pink. “You belong with _us_ ,” her voice cracked a little and she swallowed roughly. “No matter what, you are with us. Forever. And nothing, _nothing_ you can do will change that, _do you understand?_ ”

Rey pressed her eyes closed, big round tears once again falling fat and fast down her face, now out of relief. Jyn’s arms wrapped over Cassian’s on her shoulders and they both hugged her tightly until her tears subsided.

“You’re still in a lot of trouble,” Jyn murmured into her shoulder.

And Rey didn’t even care if she was grounded for the rest of her life, as long as it was in this home.

  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Ben was halfway through something the school claimed was “chipped beef” (although he was pretty sure they had swapped out the ‘ar’ for two e’s) when Armitage interrupted his deep stare into mashed potatoes and brown muck by tossing his tray to the top of the lunch table. 

Both he and Poe raised their heads to look at their friend quizzically. 

“Gentleman,” he said formally with a grin and a nod. “You are now looking at a certified, pussy connoisseur.” 

Poe frowned, fork in hand. “Does that mean you’re writing a book about your lifelong struggle being one or you finally made an appointment to get one?”

“What? Damn it, Dameron, don’t you know what a connoisseur is?”

Poe shot Ben a knowing glance across the table and he had to stifle a chuckle. Poe couldn’t resist fucking with Hux the way Ben couldn’t resist riling up his own sister. 

“Doesn’t it at least mean you’ve tried more than one?” Ben asked, before taking a sip out of a milk carton with a quirked eyebrow.

“Whatever, you shits, the point is,” Armie said, pulling up his knees over the bench to sit down beside Ben. “Of the three of us, only one spent a full hour blissfully drowning in the pleasurable sighs and sweet nectar of Corde Bravanc’s vagina last night.” He took a bite of an apple and wagged his eyebrows. 

“Don’t say _vagina_ , I’m eating, and you’re not a 50-year-old sex-ed teacher,” Ben grumbled, stabbing at his food. 

"Did you say an _hour?_ " Poe questioned, his brain clearly going into overdrive. He scoffed slightly, sitting back, eyes distant. “I can’t believe Armitage _fucking_ Weasley went down on a girl before I did,” then, the corners of his mouth tipped up a little in awe. “How was it?”

Armie took another crunching bite of his apple. “Spectacular,” he sighed through a full mouth.

Poe’s eyes narrowed. “What’d it taste like?”

He thought for a second. “Peeps.”

“Peeps,” Poe repeated in a murmur, thoughts clearly drifting off on his own.

“Didn’t you guys go out on like, two dates?” Ben asked. He didn’t really care about the logistics of Armie’s short relationship with Corde in the least, but it just seemed a little quick to be swapping bodily fluids. 

“Dude, she _begged_ me,” Armie whispered, leaning in, conspiratorially. He waved them in closer and they bowed their heads. “We were on her couch, started making out, and the next thing I know, she’s pushing my hand up under her bra and _whining_ for me to eat her out. I didn’t even have to fucking try!” 

Ben would never admit it out loud, but that secretly sounded like his worst nightmare. He wouldn’t even know where to begin. Surely, he could bumble through it, but he’d undoubtedly look like the inexperienced buffoon he really was. 

No one knew, but he hadn't even _kissed_ a girl yet. 

At Greg Tane’s Halloween party, he was pushed into a closet with a girl he’d never met before for seven minutes who, much to Ben’s relief, just wanted to talk about her cats because she was really hoping she would have pulled Poe Dameron’s name out of the hat instead. 

They came out and everyone just assumed and he never corrected.

It was easier that way. 

Poe, on the other hand, had tongue-bathed his way through most of the girls in their class and probably a hearty handful of upperclassmen. It was actually more shocking that he had never taken it any further. 

“Haven’t found one I want to make that jump with yet,” he admitted with zero shame, stretching his triceps at a track warm-up. “When you keep it to the simple stuff, you’re not breaking any hearts. Girls know what I’m about and I’m not making any promises. They’re mutually beneficial transactions everyone walks away from happy.”

 _Mutually beneficial transactions_. It was something Ben couldn’t get out of his head. 

He wouldn’t consider himself a prude by any means. He had certainly viewed enough endless hours of pornographic material to contradict that. But it nettled at him a little when he thought about uselessly sharing something intimate like kissing with someone he didn’t have true feelings for. Maybe it was juvenile, or unrealistically romanticized, but he thought about a young girl, screaming in a gym corridor about how important her first kiss was supposed to be to her. 

Shouldn’t it be that way for everyone? Even boys?

“Anyway, I’m buying condoms after school,” Armitage said lazily. “One can never be too prepared.”

  
  


*** 

In the Spring, Rey barged into his kitchen, breathless. Her face flushed, her eyes wide.

“Jyn and Cassian are getting married!” she gasped excitedly. 

“ _What!!_ ” Kaydel screamed, her head snapping up from her History homework on the kitchen table. Kay screamed again, leaping up to hug her friend as the two of them bounced manically around the kitchen. Ben shoved his fingers in his ears.

It was like a little bit of his childhood had died at that moment. 

At the age he was now, he knew his adolescent dream of marrying Jyn Erso was absolutely and laughably unrealistic, but still, it was a little sad for that final nail to hit the coffin. 

Then, he wondered if Paige would go as his date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Courtney Barnett](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-nr1nNC3ds)  
> Chapter title
> 
> [Vagabon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzFb1z_-Cvw)  
> Bus song
> 
> [Bonus Vagabon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudzR6W0OGo)  
> Because she really is that good and this song is on my LtbL playlist


	4. My heart was keeping time and we were dancing on the edge of something new

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had to change the format of this story in order to make it work properly moving forward. Hopefully, I haven't confused any readers who have been with it from the beginning (sorry!)
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING** for this chapter: Mention of pregnancy loss
> 
> I can't even gush enough about how awesome [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) and [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) are. Truly just the best.

[ ](https://imgur.com/Wo15Sbt)

Summer, per usual, was way too short.

Jyn had set the wedding date for early August. She made both Cassian and Rey swear that they would focus on keeping it simple, to which Cassian agreed, then swapped a hidden wink with Rey when Jyn had turned around. 

Rey was so excited, she couldn’t even control the natural giddiness that took over her every time she thought about it.

She couldn’t wait to see how beautiful Jyn was going to be as a bride and she was thrilled to be able to pick out a fancy dress of her own (in any color and style she wanted!). The thought of being able to eat cake and have a party with some of their closest friends kept her up night after night with elation. 

The dress she picked was a soft pale green. “Seafoam” the tag had said, and she thought that it definitely had to be her new favorite color. It was light and flowy, with pretty butterfly sleeves that fluttered when she turned and made her feel like she should be posing for a bridal magazine. It hung in her closet, wrapped in clear plastic, and the first thing she did every morning was look at it as if it could disappear throughout the night. 

One afternoon, shortly after the end of 7th grade, she and Jyn spent almost a whole rainy day digging through piles and piles of boxes. Some old and musty, others plastic, and stacked atop each other.

“God, why do we have all this _shit?_ ” Jyn grumbled, digging through a bin containing a bunch of DVD cases. She held up a black rectangle with two clear plastic windows in it.

“What’s that?” Rey asked, swatting a cloud of dust out her way, sour-faced, and coughing. 

Jyn laughed, tossing the thing back in the bin. “Exactly,” she pressed a hand on her knee as she stood, slapping at her other thigh to brush away some dirt. “We really gotta get rid of some of this junk.”

Rey hummed agreeably, pulling another big plastic container towards her crossed legs. She lifted the lid and gasped.

“Baby clothes!” Reaching in, she pulled up a tiny blue striped shirt with a pirate teddy bear on it, eyepatch and all, sailing a ship. “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered. “Jyn why do you—”

Her heart faltered when she dropped the shirt from it’s held up position and saw Jyn’s face.

She looked at Rey like she was holding a giant snake or a spider, and not a little boy's shirt. 

Rey tossed the shirt back in the bin quickly, slapping the lid over it as fast as possible. She didn’t know what she had just unearthed, but she knew that it was definitely not good. 

The rain ticked at the pane of the window as the heaviness of the room intensified. Rey didn’t move and Jyn’s eyes stayed on the box as if the contents were going to spring out at her at any moment. 

Quietly, Jyn crossed the cramped, creaky floor of the attic, coming to kneel on the opposite side of the bin across from Rey. 

Her hands hesitated briefly, trembling before they pulled off the lid. 

“I forgot this was up here,” she said softly, looking down at the piles of clothes, blankets, and toys. Letting out a deep, shaky breath she tentatively reached in and brushed her fingers over a set of onesies, still on the plastic hanger. 

“His name was Henry,” she said, her eyes growing glassy, her voice low and calm. “He died in my belly.”

Rey felt like she could burst into tears. She couldn’t imagine anything so awful, and it was even worse, that it happened to people like Jyn and Cassian. 

People she considered her parents. Who were kind and funny, and really, really _great_ parents. It was horrible and unfair.

“I’m sorry,” Rey said, and Jyn smiled sadly.

“Thank you,” she put the lid back on the bin and pushed it to the side. “We should donate that. I’m sure someone else could really use it.”

Rey wanted to ask why she didn’t want to have another baby or how she could know that she wouldn’t have one someday. But she didn’t. It wasn’t really her business anyway. 

Later that night, when they were sitting down to eat dinner, Jyn scooped a spoonful of rice onto a plate, before she handed it to Rey.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Rey’s eyes flew open wide. The word had just slipped out. 

Truthfully, though, it had been something loose and rolling around in her mind a lot lately. Like an irritating little marble. Should she be calling them Mom and Dad? Was it weird that she still called them by their names, now that she knew for sure they were a proper family? A true wolfpack. 

The discovery that Jyn and Cassian were going to have a baby, and then lost him, made her wonder if that was something they would even want. She wasn’t _their_ baby. Not really. Would that make a difference in what she called them? 

It was too late to keep contemplating now; she had already said it out loud. 

Jyn froze, plate hovering in front of Rey for a moment. Across from Rey, Cassian’s fork remained still, suspended in the motion of lifting to his mouth. In a blink, it all went back to normal, and Jyn rested the plate to the table before her.

“You’re welcome,” she said, leaning over to plant a kiss to the crown of Rey’s head.

Rey breathed a sigh of relief.

When they were finished eating, Rey was assigned the task of picking out a movie in the living room, while Cassian and Jyn loaded up the dishwasher. 

Having a feeling that there was a conversation hanging in the air, waiting for her to leave the room, she slid against the hallway wall to eavesdrop instead.

“I’m jealous,” Cassian said lightly, causing Jyn to let out a gush of a sigh.

“I can’t believe she called me Mom,” Jyn’s voice held a tonality to it unfamiliar to Rey. Something floating and awed. Rey could almost envision her with her hand over her heart, jaw dropped. It made her smile. Jyn liked being called “Mom”.

And Rey _wanted_ to call Jyn “Mom”.

After that, she only called them Mom and Dad. 

Jyn kept saying she didn’t want a big wedding. That she didn’t want an elaborate ceremony, enormous guest list, swanky menu, or ridiculous reception. 

Rey didn’t understand. When she, Kay, and Rose looked at the wedding magazines at the store, all of the women had huge gowns, bouquets bigger than basketballs, veils the size of umbrellas, and insane sparkling jewelry. 

“When I get married, I’m going to have a designer dress the size of a house!” Kaydel said. “I’m going to have a huge party that lasts the whole weekend and everyone who’s anyone will be there.”

She was convinced that she was going to marry one of the Jonas brothers. She didn’t care which one.

“I want to get married on a beach,” Rose said with a wistful sigh. “No one in my family has ever done that. Everyone has gotten married in a big, boring ceremony. They’re awful.”

They were in their usual Summer spot, floating aimlessly around the Solo’s pool, cold drinks in cup holders, dark shades on faces. Kaydel had gotten herself a bright red bikini that year, which she loved to prance around in whenever Poe and Armie showed up to hang out with Ben.

Rey and Rose were still in one-pieces. 

Rose said her father would lose his mind if anyone ever saw her stomach like that. This seemed unfair, considering that Paige’s belly button was usually purposely visible between the gap of her clothing.

“He says she’s going to send him to an early grave,” Rose had once commented about her sister's rebellious nature. It seemed to Rey that all it ever did was ruin Rose’s fun. The worse Paige was, the better Rose had to be.

And Rey certainly didn’t dislike Paige, she had been nothing but nice to Rey, but it just seemed selfish that she didn’t see how her actions had an impact on her sister as well. It almost seemed slightly poetic that Paige was never allowed to come to the Solo’s house to hang but Rose was. 

Rose wasn’t allowed to come over, though, unless Mr. or Mrs. Tico called to make sure that Mrs. Solo was going to be home to chaperone them. 

It was bullshit. 

Rey’s old suit had no longer fit, resulting in a massive and comically uncomfortable wedgie when she tried to secure the straps over her shoulders. She actually tried a bikini on herself while shopping for a new suit for the summer, but the triangular fabric over her practically still flat chest, just looked empty and baggy with nothing to fill the space. The straight band kind was even worse, completely emphasizing her lack of bust. She whipped the thing off and threw it to the floor of the Target dressing room. 

More unfair bullshit.

She didn’t want to be seen in such a ridiculous thing, especially with Ben, Poe, and Armitage making random appearances around the pool throughout the summer.

Her new suit was pretty nice though. Teal green with big, bright sunflowers on it. Rose’s was just plain black, with blue racing stripes on the side. Same as last year.

The boys were slouched in different lazy positions around the Solo’s patio table, engaged in some kind of card game. 

Poe and Armie spent as much time at the Solo’s that summer as she did. 

The first time she had met Poe Dameron, she had not been prepared. She was all sweaty, red-faced, and probably stinky, having ridden her bike all the way back from the lake on a brutally hot day. 

They got permission from their parents to ride out there so Kaydel could officially break-up with Bobby to his face. She had heard rumors that he had been hanging out with Alyla Vancil, which turned out to be true when they rolled up to the grass to find them both laying on a blanket.

“What a cheating asshole!” Kaydel snapped, her legs pumping furiously on the way back home. 

Their front wheel tires must have just hit the driveway when Mr. Tico called to see if Rose could come over. 

Rose burst into the house, her own face red from her run across the street. 

“Tell me _everything!_ ”

The three of them stood in the Solo’s kitchen, Kaydel and Rey telling the story, panting and chugging water, while Rose listened, enthralled. The sliding door opened and Ben strode in, shirtless (of course) and still a little wet from the pool. He carelessly tossed his wet towel over Kaydel’s head as he passed on his way to the fridge, where he stood beside Rey. It seemed like he hadn’t even seen her at all. 

“You want a Coke or a Sprite?” he asked, and for a very brief moment, Rey thought maybe he was talking to her. She even opened her mouth to respond, before a voice sounded behind her.

“Sprite, I guess,” answered a boy, standing shirtless and _handsome_ by the kitchen table.

It was pretty obvious that that was the general consensus as silent but virtually telepathic looks passed between the three girls. 

Ben handed him a can, before cracking the top to his own. As he drank from it, his eyes slid over and looked at her. He lowered the can, licked his lips, and gave her a little head-jerk. 

“You guys just run a marathon or what?”

Oh crap, she probably looked like a sweaty tomato. 

“We were at the lake,” she replied, stupidly. Her throat didn’t seem to want to work, so it came out all squeaky like. 

“I’m Kaydel,” Kay said, boldly shoving her hand in the direction of Ben’s friend with a smile. 

“I’ve heard all about you,” the boy smiled, then looked at Ben. “Bro, you told me she had horns and a tail.”

“Ben!” Kaydel huffed, offended.

Ben chuckled into his soda can with a shake of his head, slumping against the sink.

“I’m Poe,” the boy said with a smile. And oh God, his eyes crinkled when he smiled.

“I’m—” Rey began, but Ben straightened from his lounging position, crushing his soda can in his palm.

“That’s Stringbean and that’s Smalls,” he said, pointing at them accordingly. Rey thought her face was going to light up in flames; almost thankful it was already scarlet from the bike ride. 

“Stringbean and Smalls,” the boy nodded in their directions. “Got it.”

In the pool, Rey’s hand tapped around blindly for her purple acrylic tumbler. The girls had decided that being environmentally friendly was something they needed to take seriously after an assembly on Earth Day that showed sea turtles with plastic straws in their noses and dead birds with bottle caps in their opened bellies. She shuddered just thinking about it. 

To tell the tumblers apart, they purchased them in different jewel tones: Rey’s was purple, Rose’s blue, and Kaydel’s red. They drank from them every day. 

Taking a sip of her refreshing lemonade, her thoughts drifted back to later that night at the Tico’s, after Rose’s Mom made them an amazing fried fish dinner called Ca sot ca, and then let them eat still hot fried dough balls coated in sugar for dessert. They sat on the plush carpet in Rose’s room, cheeks full of dough and sugar granules, already changed into their pajamas. 

The Ticos never let Rose spend the night anywhere else, so whenever they wanted a sleepover with all 3 of them, it had to be at Rose’s.

“My sister says he’s basically a kissing bandit,” Rose said with a full mouth. 

Kaydel’s eyes lit up at that. “Kissing slut. _Love it_. That means he might kiss me,” she wagged her eyebrows.

Rey frowned, shoving another tasty donut into her mouth. She would never want to hurt Cassian’s feelings, but Mrs. Tico was literally the best cook ever. Her dumplings and fresh summer salads were unlike anything Rey had ever tasted before. 

“Don’t you think that Ben would be mad about that?” she mumbled through a cheek full of dough.

Kaydel shrugged with one shoulder lazily. “My love life doesn’t concern Ben. Besides, now that I’m single and Rose has a crush on Armie, I have to find another crush. You know, girl code.” She stood, walking over to Rose’s desk and grabbed a hairbrush. Kneeling behind Rose, she started to brush her shiny, black strands gently, starting at the ends.

Rose’s secret crush on Armitage was a very high point of anxiety for her. When she confessed it to Rey, she was so worried that Kaydel would think she was a traitor. Rey had assured her that Kay was a better friend than that, and when she finally came clean, Kay promised she’d never have feelings for Armitage ever again. 

“Too bad he doesn’t have another cute friend for Rey,” Kaydel said sadly, now intently focused on parting Rose’s hair at the crown. Kaydel was a master at braiding. She was able to do all sorts of fun styles and different patterns. 

It was like the idea of Rey carrying a secret torch for Ben wasn’t even an option.

It really wasn’t, she supposed. Kaydel may have been okay with giving up Armie for Rose, but Rey felt she would feel betrayed if Rey confessed her irritating little endearment toward her brother. 

As Rey floated around the pool, face tipped up to the bright, warm sun, she could almost understand. Even if Ben did look at her like a girl that wasn’t just his sister's kid friend, what would that mean for her time spent at the Solo’s? Say, in some crazy universe where Ben suddenly woke up and saw her as anything more than a human string bean and actually wanted to go out with her, who would she spend more time with? Ben or Kaydel? Would Kaydel get jealous if she came over to see Ben but didn’t hang out with her? Would Ben want to hold her hand or kiss her (just the thought of that made her stomach flutter) and would it make Kaydel totally gag?

The whole thing was just too messy. It was better to keep her little, tiny, barely even _noticeable_ crush on Ben, to herself. 

The splash of a rude canon ball interrupted her thoughts. 

The girls squealed as water splashed onto them and their floats rocked in the waves. 

Armie stood up with a grin, but before they could berate him, another cannonball sent more water flying into the air and the waves sloshed against the sides of the pool.

“What is wrong with you guys!” Kaydel yelled, wiping water off of her face. She was closest to the impact against the pool surface. The third splash got her again, causing her to curse and slap the surface of the water on either side of her float. 

“Hey, ‘bean,” Poe said, appearing beside her inner tube, head poking above the water, his mouth dipping back below the water level. He stood and shot a steady stream of water her way from his mouth, just like a cherub in a fountain.

“Gross! _Poe!_ ” she laughed, making to get out of the line of fire and slipping from her raft in the process, legs shooting straight up in the air as she tumbled into the water. Beneath the surface, a hand wrapped around her arm and gently pulled her topside, where she sputtered, eyes clamped closed.

“What the _hell!_ ”

Poe was laughing so hard, he could barely speak. “I am so sorry! I really didn’t mean for that to happen! I was just messing around.”

Rey wiped the wet hair off her forehead with a grumpy frown. She had lost her sunglasses in the plunge. 

“Careful with that one, Dameron,” Armie said with a teasing grin, a green pool noodle poking out from under his armpits. His hand was casually clasped on the handle of Rose’s floating tube and it looked like she wasn’t breathing, her eyes locked on it. “She’s got a mean right hook and she’s not afraid to use it.”

Poe turned back to her with a big grin. “Oh yeah? Do they call you the _Lean Mean fighting ‘bean_ in the streets?”

It was so stupid, she almost _had_ to laugh. 

Poe dunked under the water, retrieving her sunglasses from the pool floor. He handed them to her with a shake of his hair and big, high watt smile. She smiled back. 

When she looked up both of the Solo siblings were wearing wet, matching frowns.

  
  
  


***

On the day of the wedding, the sky was perfectly blue and clear with a cheery, little breeze that kept it from being too hot.

She was up super early, unable to sleep past 6 am. 

Busying herself, she went to the backyard. They decorated the space with extra swooping string lights the night before. Long tables were added, and she began to bundle together bunches of wildflowers she, Rose, and Kay had picked from the field in the park the day before, into vases. 

Her hair was still braided and wrapped in a silk scarf to keep it from getting frizzy. She went over to Kaydel’s around 9 to sit at the kitchen table while Kay undid her braids, then rebraided the top half of her hair. The rest fell in loose, pretty chocolate waves down her back.

“I love it,” she said, twisting to look at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and Kaydel beamed, proud of her work. They exchanged a hug and Kaydel passed off one of her lip glosses, the tropical punch one, with just a hint of a berry tint to it. 

Not really much of a make-up wearer, Rey was excited about the pretty eyeshadow she had purchased that made her lids look iridescent and glowy, along with an eyeliner pencil and mascara, still waiting in the bag from the store, unopened. 

The sound of a body hitting the side of the open doorway made them both start. Leaning against the frame, Ben was slumped in a pair of boxer shorts, rubbing his eyes, his hair a storm of black chaotic waves and spikes. 

Uncontrolled, Rey’s eyes shot down to the fabric fly of his shorts before she managed to get control and yank them away very quickly. Her stupid blush roared up her neck and cheeks.

It was dumb. She saw him in shorts all the time. It was practically the same thing. 

_It is not the same thing! Ben Solo is standing in front of you in his underwear!_ Her brain screamed. 

“What the hell Ben!” Kaydel cried, whacking him on his bare shoulder with her palm. “Put some pants on, Rey is here!”

“Rey doesn’t care. Move, before I piss on you,” he grumbled grumpily from sleep, his face scrunched in a frown. 

When she got back home, Jyn and Cassian were sipping coffee and laughing in the kitchen. Jyn had her hair set in pinned ringlets close to her head and Cassian’s face was freshly shaved. Their eyes seemed unable to leave each other, their grins never fading. 

Hours later, they faced each other in the park under the most beautiful arched trellis loaded with ivy and climbing flowers. Jyn’s dress was simple but perfectly elegant, the spaghetti straps and open back looking as natural and comfortable on her as everyday clothes. Cassian looked absolutely dashing in his dark blue suit vest and matching pants. He skipped the jacket and rolled up his sleeves to the elbows. Rey couldn’t get over how incredibly cool and sharp he looked. Like a menswear model.

Rey stood off to the side wiping her eyes, unable to keep a smile off of her face. 

When the ceremony was over, they posed for pictures, and then the three of them got in a limo that Cassian had rented, without telling Jyn. She wasn’t even mad about it though, laughing when Rey cranked up some music and played with the controls for the light panel to make the whole interior flash between green and blue. 

As they took off down the road they all tipped their heads back into a hearty wolf howl.

Nothing about the day could dim the smile on Rey’s face. She wished the two of them could be that happy forever. It was beautiful to see.

Someone had laid out a dance floor when they were gone, and after Cassian and Jyn's first dance, the party had officially begun. 

Rey smiled, watching as the two of them grinned at each other on the dance floor still swaying slowly between a lull in songs.

“Happy, _mi Vida?_ ” Cassian asked, lifting Jyn’s hand to kiss at the band that now sat there. She never wanted an engagement ring, for some reason Rey would probably never understand, but her wedding ring was a gorgeous, silver, and sparkily thing with tiny, entwined diamonds threading through it. 

“Incredibly,” Jyn replied, raising her free hand to touch his cheek. 

It was so romantic, Rey thought she could die. She could only wish that one day she would be so happy.

The sun had set and the entire neighborhood was crammed into their backyard.

She was trying very hard not to look at Ben too much after the whole underwear thing. He was wearing all black. Pants, shirt, tie. She imagined he must have been incredibly hot when the sun was out, but now, as he sat next to Paige at one of the tables, hunched over, his elbows atop his spread knees, he looked an entirely different kind of hot. The kind she very much didn’t want to let herself notice.

She, Kay, and Rose sat at another table, taking a drink break from the non-stop dancing they had been doing. 

“You look _so_ pretty, Rey,” Rose said, admiringly. She herself looked unbelievably nice that night too, wearing an olive dress that she said was leftover from her Aunt’s wedding last year. Paige wore an identical one. Rose hadn’t really grown a lot in the past year, not like Rey had. Rey was taller than Kaydel now, while Rose remained a squat and tiny thing. 

Hence the nickname “Smalls” given to her by the boys. 

“I bet if you asked Ben to dance, he’d say yes,” Rose said, out of the blue.

Rey jolted slightly, eyes darting away from the table across from them and its occupant quickly. 

How could Rose have known? Was Rey really that freaking obvious??

“Ben doesn’t dance,” Kaydel said as if it were common knowledge. Like, birds fly and sing, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and Ben Solo doesn’t dance. “Not unless he’s absolutely _forced_ to. And even then, it’s painful to watch. Besides,” she added with a scoff. “Why would she want to dance with him anyway? So he can stomp all over her feet and tell her she’s a summer vegetable? I don’t know how your sister can tolerate him.” 

Rose gave a little shrug, toying with a purple daisy in her hands. 

“She says he’s the only person that “gets” her.”

Rey felt woozy.

Kaydel frowned a little. “Are they like boyfriend and girlfriend?”

No. Nauseous, she was nauseous. 

Rose shook her head, eyes wide. “No way, my parents would _freak_.”

“What if,” Kaydel whispered, and they all huddled together. “They’re secret boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Sick. She might be sick. 

She didn’t like the thought of that at all. 

Rose’s nose scrunched up a little. “I don’t think so,” she whispered, shaking her head a little bit. “I don’t think Paige likes him like that. I don’t think she likes any boys like that.”

The confidence in Rose’s tone caused Rey to breathe a deep, soothing sigh of relief. 

Rey glowered back across the tables. She had noticed from school dances that a lot of boys “didn’t dance.” It was actually kind of annoying. And, not like she actually _wanted_ to dance with any of the boys at her school, but it would maybe be nice to be asked by one someday.

Cassian had taught her some of the basics. Waltz, cha-cha, rumba, and her absolute favorite, the salsa. He promised that when she got a little older, he would teach her bachata moves too. 

The song on the playlist changed and Kaydel leaped up from her seat, excitedly. 

“This is a good one, let’s go!”

Rose popped up happily, but Rey remained seated.

“I actually have to use the bathroom,” she said, not liking to lie, but also not wanting to share the probably stupid plan that had just popped into her head.

It was a bad one and one that probably wouldn’t work. But now that it had hatched in her mind, Rey would hate herself if she didn’t at least give it a try.

  
  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  


He wanted to ask Paige to dance. Really, he did.

But, as they sat at the banquet table, lined with white linens, and flickering candles dancing in the night air, he just couldn’t seem to figure out how he should do it. 

_Oh, hey, this song doesn’t totally suck, maybe we should dance to it?_ Lame

 _My legs could use a stretch, wanna walk to the dance floor?_ Dumb.

 _Hey Paige, did you wear your boogie shoes tonight?_ Holy hell, he hated his brain. 

Turning to her, he was just about to spurt out whatever formation of words he could string together and hope for the best, when she stood, giving him a small smile. She was wearing an olive green dress that matched her sisters and really shouldn’t have looked good, but somehow ended up looking great. 

“Be right back, gotta pee.”

Okay. That was fine. It bought him some time to come up with something better than grunting out: “Us, dance now?” 

She wasn’t gone for long when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, kid, someone wanted me to give you this,” said a familiar voice. A note was shoved before his face, held between two fingers. Ben took it, frowning up at his Uncle Lando. 

“Who’s it from?” he asked, turning it in his own fingers.

His uncle gave him that shit-eating grin he always did when he knew something you didn’t. Which was more often than not. 

It made him think of his cousin Jannah, who had the same smile and now lived with her Mom the next town over. Ben missed her. 

“Girlie in the green dress,” he gave his eyebrows a bump or two. “The pretty one,” he gave Ben’s shoulder a rough cuff and a bit of a shake. 

_Holy shit._

“What’s it say?”

Lando raised his hands innocently, backing away. “Just the messenger,” he gave him a wink and set off towards the dance floor with a silly sway to his hips as he joined in with the mass of others dancing to _Pretty Young Thing_. 

His parents were out there, laughing, dancing, having more fun than he had seen them have in ages. His dad gave his mother a grin, grabbing her by the sides of her face and pulling her close for an exaggerated kiss. 

Gross. 

Ben opened the folded square in his hands at lightning speed.

**Meet me on the furthest side of your house in 5 minutes.**

_Holy. SHIT!_

Ben stuffed the note in his pocket and looked around, as if someone could be lurking over his shoulder, reading it. Someone like a scowling Mr. Tico.

He shot up from his seat. There was no way he was waiting five minutes. Walking quickly, he moved along the side of the Andor’s house, between the parked cars in the driveway, and out of the warmly lit backyard, into the dimmer, softer glow of the street lamps lining their street. 

His dress shoes scraped lightly on the sidewalk as he nervously pulled his hands through his hair, and checked his breath (not to make assumptions, but it never hurt to be prepared). Heart feeling like it was beating two steps in front of him, he cut across the lawn to his own, darkened home, the music from the party softening slightly with distance. Everyone in the neighborhood was at the Andor’s tonight. 

The side of the house was cast darkly in a shadow. 

“Paige?” he whispered but received no response. 

His heart thundered in his ears. It was okay, she had said five minutes. He needed to calm the fuck down.

Leaning against the house, he waited for what felt like an agonizing amount of time before he heard the soft brush of footsteps in the grass. He pushed off the siding of the house, making himself visible, perhaps a little too eagerly. 

It was not Paige who faced him. 

“Holy shit, you actually came,” whispered Rey, the whites of her eyes, wide with shock, shining visibly in the dark. 

His heart picked up speed again this time in a less pleasantly anticipatory way. This was bad. This was very, very much not good. Rey was a kid! Thirteen. And despite his sudden wondering of what shampoo she used, that smelled so clean or if her freckles actually multiplied in the summer or not, she was absolutely and _totally_ off-limits for so many goddamn reasons he wasn’t even going to entertain the idea. 

Was this because she had seen him in his underwear?

What the fuck had he gotten himself into? He should leave, immediately. 

“Why did you write me that note?” he asked instead, feet unable to move.

Her thin shoulders rose and fell under the flowing sleeves of her dress. Her green dress. God _damn it._

“Kay said you don’t know how to dance,” she said, moving forward. He took a step back quickly. 

“I—I can dance,” he stuttered, stupidly. 

She didn’t ask him out here because she thought something was going to happen between them, did she? 

Lately, things had gotten a little weird around the concrete deck of the Solo’s pool. Armie’s appearances became less and less frequent as he and Corde’s relationship became more and more serious. 

“Trust me, once you start getting bj’s on the regular, you’ll totally understand,” he had said with a laugh after he ditched them for yet another night that summer.

Poe, who was fluent in flirt, seemed to be unable to help himself from gravitating towards his sister’s best friend. Rey seemed to tolerate him mostly, never rude, always polite and friendly, but definitely careful in her behavior back towards him. Ben could only assume that it had something to do with Kaydel’s unrelenting attempts to capture Poe’s attention. His sister was a master of a lot of things, subtlety not being one of them.

“Have you ever noticed that Rey’s eyes sometimes look green and sometimes look, like… I don’t even know, gold maybe?” Poe said, a little absentmindedly, chin in hand as he gazed across the yard towards the girls, laid out in the grass on their stomachs.

Rey was drawing in the journal Ben had given her.

“Man, you gotta cool it with the Rey thing,” Ben said quietly, slapping a card down between them. Games of _Spit_ had become part of the daily routine, between cycles in and out of the sun and pool. 

Poe looked back at him with a frown, before slapping his own card to the table. “What do you mean?”

Ben sighed and rolled his eyes, working his cards in hand. 

“First, she’s fucking thirteen and it’s weird.” 

“So dude, we’re only fifteen,” Poe countered.

“Okay, well second,” they were both flipping and moving cards quickly on the table, “How about, you’re in high school and she’s going to be in eighth grade. Still fucking weird.”

Poe gave a little nod of agreement with a frown.

“True, that is a little weird, but, I mean, a year really isn’t that long and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a Junior asking out a Freshman.”

That… that made Ben feel… what even _was_ that feeling?

Laughing bitterly, Ben pushed the uneasy feeling aside. “Whatever man, like you could go a whole a year without shoving your tongue down someone’s throat.”

Poe slapped his hand on the table, winning the game with a triumphant fist pump up from his seat. 

He grinned, pulling the cards toward himself to reshuffle. 

“I could if it was someone really worth waiting for.”

And now, Ben was standing in his dark, abandoned yard with the topic of that very confusing conversation. Alone.

He could not think of a single reason other than the obvious, why Rey Andor would want to meet him on the dark and private side of his house, away from the rest of the party. How was he going to let her down gently? His sister's best friend. His neighbor. 

“Why are you acting so weird?” she said in an irritated tone. She moved closer, and his back bumped against the house again. 

“Look, Rey, I know that this might seem like something that could maybe happen, but it _can’t_. I’m in high school. It’s entirely inappropriate and if Mr. Andor ever found out he’d probably skin me alive—”

Rey frowned, cocking her head to the side.

“We can just go back to the party and pretend as if none of this happened. I won’t even tease you about it. Ever. I promise.”

She blinked at him, brow furrowed.

“So you don’t want to learn how to dance?”

_Wait, what?_

“Wait, what?” he said out loud, still pressed up against the house, as if she was holding him at knifepoint. “What are you talking about?”

“What are _you_ talking about?” she said with a huff. 

Sweet relief. He felt the tension practically melt out of him with a bodily sigh. Of course, it was something else entirely! This was _Rey_. What had made him think that she would even remotely be interested in him anyway? She barely seemed able to be in the same room as him most of the time.

He scratched at the back of his neck, bashfully.

“Sorry, I…” he blew out a breath through puffed lips. She was being nice. She was offering to help him. “Okay, sure.” 

With a firm nod, she waved him forward. He stepped closer to her. Probably closer than he’d ever been, certainly face-to-face. When had she gotten so tall? The top of her head could nearly touch his chin. How had he not noticed that until now? 

She stepped even closer and he had to resist the urge to jump back again. The smell of something sweet and pretty wafted up to him as she took one of his hands in hers, placing the other on her waist. Her small, warm waist that his huge hand nearly covered. 

Had he ever touched her before? His brain was flipping wildly through the catalog of their history as she tipped her face up toward his. 

_Oh, wow..._

His brain all but stuttered to a stop as he looked down into her lovely eyes. Almond-shaped beauties, rimmed with dark lashes. He knew they were green, but in the night, they looked darker. Her shiny mouth gleamed in the moonlight, undoubtedly from one of the lip glosses that he was constantly finding around the house. 

He wondered what flavor it was.

“You’re the guy, so you’re supposed to lead,” she said, sternly. 

Right. Lead. Was she blushing or was that just make up?

“I’m going to sorta pull you through the steps, but when you’re dancing, you’re going to need to kind of push your partner. Does that make sense?”

“Uh, yeah, I think,” he stammered less than eloquently.

“Okay,” she said quietly, as her hand tightened on his. “It’s really easy, just a three-count.”

Did she just look at his mouth?

He smiled a little. She cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to his sternum. 

Oh yeah, she was looking. Wait, why did he _care?_

She took a step back and he followed. 

“One,” she whispered, then took a step to her side, and he followed. “Two,” her hand pushed gently against his shoulder, guiding his backward, as he took a step back and she followed. “Three.”

They repeated the steps rhythmically, timed to her whispered counts. Soon enough, Ben caught the gentle cadence of it and began to actually lead. He turned them here, made an adjustment there, and without even knowing it, he found himself grinning like a moron. 

He was dancing! Like, actually fucking dancing!

“Should we try a spin?” he asked. He wasn’t sure when they had both started laughing either. 

“Ah, the student becomes the teacher,” she joked as he raised her arm over her head. 

The turn was sloppy and not at all elegant, causing them both to fall out of step and into hysterics. From the party, a bass-beat pumped into the night, and Rey backed up a little, grabbing the skirt of her dress, swaying it as she moved, dancing along however she wanted to the song.

And Ben, for the first time ever, moved how he felt like he wanted to. For someone who loved music so much, the rhythm of his body never seemed to be able to match the beat. But here in the dark with her, it felt like he was free to seek out new movements. Turn and sway and try motions never experimented with before. 

They bounced, gestured, and sang to each other in their own private little party, kept hidden in the shadows. 

The song switched back to a slow song and they stood across from each other, catching their breaths and grinning.

He watched as her chest rose and fell, her smile big and happy. She looked… beautiful. Like the prettiest, most heart-tugging thing he had ever seen. 

_Ask to kiss her,_ his treacherous brain whispered. 

_What the_ FUCK? _No way!_ His rational brain argued. 

“We should go back,” he said suddenly, causing her smile to flicker a little bit. He had no idea how long they had been out here for. It felt like it could have been between 10 minutes and 5 hours. 

She nodded, looking past him toward the direction of the party as if she just realized the same thing. 

They walked side by side through the grass, and onto the sidewalk in front of his house. 

When they got to the bushes that separated their driveways, she stopped, putting a soft hand on his arm. 

“I should go back first,” she said. She was lit fully below the streetlights. Her freckles, her pretty pink mouth, her dark hair half pulled up in braids, the rest looking like it belonged to a mermaid. Those green eyes flashed his way and … maybe they were a little gold. Without thinking, he placed his hand over hers. 

“Okay,” he said softly. Her eyes drifted to their hands, then up to meet his. Her mouth dropped open slightly and once again, he wondered what it would taste like. 

Watermelon? Maybe strawberry?

What the fuck was _wrong_ with him? 

“Thank you,” he said and meant it. 

She nodded, her hand slipping out from beneath his, eyes not leaving his for a few beats before she turned. 

He gave her a solid two-minute head start before he made his way up the driveway. 

When he got back to his table, Paige was gone. It appeared that so were the Tico’s, as well as his sister and Rose. 

At the table across from him, Rey sat alone, slumped against the back of her chair, watching people on the dance floor.

Ben looked to the dance floor. The party had dwindled down to stragglers. The Andors, his parents, and a smattering of a few more occupants. Undoubtedly the music would be stopping soon, due to noise ordinance. 

He looked back towards Rey and she was looking at him. 

His lips lifted a little at the corners. Gently he jerked his chin towards the dance floor and then lifted an eyebrow. 

With pursed lips, she looked toward the space, then back at him. A shoulder up, then down, followed by a big grin. 

Ben got up from his seat and she met him on the side of the dance floor, the drumbeat of the song pounding heavy. They danced freely, wildly, until the DJ announced it was the last song. 

And then he led her properly in a final dance.

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Rey figured that eighth grade had to be the worst.

She had originally thought that it would be cool, being in the older third of the school’s population. Being the “big kids” of the school. 

Instead, she just couldn’t wait to leave. The hallways and classrooms which had once seemed so long and cavernous to her now felt tiny and stifling. Like being stuffed inside a dollhouse she had grown too big for. Like Alice, after she ate too much cake. 

Not to mention how _incredibly annoying_ all the sixth and seventh graders were. 

She was ready to start high school. She wished she could skip her final year at Ackbar Middle School altogether. Not an option, but a girl could dream. 

  
  
  
  


***

  
  


At the beginning of the school year, Paige had dyed her hair a deep, midnight blue. Like the color of the ink that leaks out of an exploded pen. 

Mr. Tico made her dye it black again, but it didn’t have the same shiny quality to it her natural black used to have.

Lately, everything about her seemed a little dull. A little less vibrant. Like her internal glow had been stifled. It made Ben sad for her.

He hardly got to see her that summer. She wasn’t allowed to hang out with “the boys”, which really blew because the majority of her friends were boys. It seemed bullshit to him that Rose was able to be at his house all the time because she was friends with Kaydel, but Paige couldn’t come over because she was friends with him. 

At lunch, they sat together, just the two of them this day. Armie was essentially required to sit with Corde, so she could run her fingers through his hair and give him dopey eyes all lunch break, Ben supposed. Poe wanted to work on his sprint times, so he was spending his lunches at the track. Leaving just him and Paige at the table.

She chewed her sandwich, eyes distant, unfocused on the white table before them.

“Paige,” he said gently.

Slowly her eyes raised to his. She was so pretty, even when she was sad.

Ben had felt a clash of his feelings as of late. His feelings towards Paige; and whatever it was he was trying to ignore for a certain hazel-eyed neighbor he shouldn’t even be thinking about at all.

“Are you okay?”

Her dark eyes began to shine a little. With a rough swallow, she gave her head a small shake. Dropping her sandwich to her lunch tray, she took a deep sigh.

“Ben, I think there’s something I need to tell you,” she said nervously. 

His heart took a flying leap into his throat. Okay, this was… unexpected?

“Can you meet me by the apple trees after school?”

Ben nodded. 

For the rest of the school day, his brain didn’t absorb a single academic thing, too busy churning, turning itself over. 

Was she finally going to confess her feelings toward him? This whole time, he had been secretly hoping, waiting. He hadn’t wanted to push her, having not really seen any blatantly obvious cues in her behavior that led him to believe she felt about him how he felt about her.

Well, _had_ felt about her. 

A summer night in the shadow of his house had derailed that a little bit. 

But now, if his initial feelings towards Paige were finally reciprocated, wouldn’t that be a sign? A sign that the silly, confusing, and sneaky fondness that lurked in the back of his mind for Rey Andor really was just a result of a dopamine high and proximity.

Paige was sitting in the grass when he approached after school. He lowered himself beside her with a gentle smile, shifting his backpack off his shoulders and to the ground.

“Okay, I have never said this to anyone before,” she started, hands twisting in her lap. “And I’m a little scared,” nervously she shifted up on her knees, biting at her lip, and he thought that yeah. Yeah, he could definitely fall back in love with Paige Tico. It would make _sense._

Ben leaned forward, resting his hand over hers.

“Just tell me,” he said genuinely, with a hopeful heart.

“Ben,” she exhaled in a sigh, her eyes wide, scared things boring into his. His heart was pounding. This was it. There was no going back from this. “Ben, I—” 

He moved his body slightly closer, ready for the kiss that was inevitably going to happen after she confessed her love for him.

“I like girls,” she blurted out in a rush.

Ben froze. Paige stared down at him, his arm still stretched out, his hand on hers. Her chest rising and falling with strained, anxious breaths.

“Please say something,” she begged, her voice tinged with fear. “Please tell me I’m not a freak or a piece of shit or some kind of monster,” she whispered, eyes beginning to brim with tears.

His blank brain suddenly snapped back to reality. Paige was gay. Shit. How the fuck had he been so blind to something so incredibly obvious? He was an _idiot_.

“What? No, Paige! Why would you—” His hand tightened over hers. “Why would you think that? You’re a great person, who you love doesn’t change that.”

Her whole body seemed to relax with a deep, heavy sigh. 

“Holy fuck, Ben. You have no idea how good it feels to be able to tell someone. I—I, no one knows. I’ve never told _anyone_ ,” she said with a small laugh of relief. 

It wasn’t at all how he thought the conversation would go, but seeing her smile again made him feel honored that she trusted him so much. A true friend.

When he got home that afternoon, he walked into the kitchen to find Kaydel and his mom sitting at the kitchen table. 

Kaydel shot him a look that warned him he should probably bolt down the stairs to his room as fast as humanly possible and skip the after school snack.

“Ben,” his mother’s voice rang out, as his foot hit the top step. So close. “You should probably have a seat too.”

Irritated, he rolled his shoulders, dropping his head back. What the fuck was today anyway? International torture an unexpecting soul day?

He plopped his backpack on the floor and plunked into the chair next to his mother. From across the table, Kaydel’s eyes met his again, silently communicating that she was being unfairly tormented by their mother.

His mother took a deep breath, “A girl at Kaydel’s school is pregnant.”

Ben’s head jerked back involuntarily. Fuck, that was… kind of unbelievable, but what did it have to do with him?

“I think it’s time we have a serious conversation about appropriate sexual activity.”

“Nope,” he said, making way to get up. Leia’s hand slapped over his wrist, tugging him back down. “C’mon, Mom, you already tortured me with this shit! Kaydel can handle it by herself.”

“Sit down,” Leia barked. So he did.

“I know that this is a very confusing time. Emotions and hormones are all over the place, you have a different crush every day, everything seems so much more complicated and intense than it ever has. But during this time, it’s very important for you to keep yourselves protected. Physically and emotionally.” 

He and Kaydel exchanged another bland glance. 

“Just be smart,” his mother sent him an irritated look. “Make sure that if you’re going to… experiment with someone, it’s someone you can trust. I know how this goes, I’m not _that_ ancient, and I’m not saying you have to be madly in love with someone, because those feelings can change, but… at least try to take care of your heart too. And if you need protection, I can get it for you.”

Ben would rather _eat_ a pack of condoms then ask his mother to buy them for him.

“Good, got it,” Ben said quickly, attempting to stand again.

“Can I be on birth control?” Kaydel asked far too excitedly for him to want to hear. He had to get the fuck out of there. “I heard certain types help with your acne and period cramps.”

“Well, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves there, but we can see what the doctor says, honey,” Leia said, hand once again tugging on Ben’s wrist. She raised her face to look at him. “Make sure that if you are getting friendly with any girls, _or boys_ ,” she amended quickly, “that you are using a barrier, like a condom. And... a little lube never hurt anyone.”

Ben clamped his eyes shut. “Lord, please strike me dead and end this pain!” he shouted, tilting his face up to the ceiling.

His mother chuckled amusedly, letting go of his wrist and giving his hand a little pat. “It’s actually sound advice, you may thank me someday.”

“Highly doubtful,” he muttered, his face a complete firey mess. 

“What’s lube?” Kaydel asked as Ben hauled his ass down the cellar stairs to his room at record speed.

Today was undoubtedly one of the weirdest and bizarre days of his life and he was more than ready to leave it behind him. 

  
  
  
  


***

  
  


The house was quiet. It was really late, she wasn’t sure what time exactly, but it had to be well past midnight. 

She was up past her bedtime, talking with Jyn and Cassian in the kitchen.

One of the girls from her Gym class and one of the boys from her Science class were going to have a baby. It was something Rey couldn’t even really wrap her brain around.

The school had sent home a letter explaining the situation, seeking parents’ approval or dismissal for a sexual education class, in which they would split up the boys and girls from each grade.

“Well,” Jyn said with a sigh, signing away her approval. “They’ll teach you the science bits, but I highly doubt they’re going to tell you the really important stuff. If you have any questions, I want you to know you can ask me and Cassian anything. We will always tell you the truth and not judge you.”

Rey nodded softly, shifting a little on her stool. 

“Okay…” she started. This was going to be weird, but she had so many questions. “When you have sex with a—a boy, he puts his penis inside you.”

“Correct,” Jyn nodded.

“So if his penis doesn’t go in you, it’s not sex?”

“Well, not technically, there are a lot of other things you can do which are _sexual_ , but not actually sex. Like…” her eyes rolled back in thought. “Like, um, _Jesus_ , how do I say this so it doesn’t sound like porn,” she muttered to herself, causing Cassian to chuckle a little. 

“Like rubbing against each other with your clothes still on,” he offered, helpfully.

“Sure,” Jyn agreed. “Or like using your fingers, or your mouths… on each other,” she added a little awkwardly. 

“Like kissing?” Rey asked.

“Right, but, uh—not on your mouth, on other parts, instead.”

It took Rey a moment to understand what she meant. She gasped, appalled, “On my _vagina?_ ”

“Yes,” Rey could tell that Jyn was trying very hard to suppress a smile. “I know it sounds crazy now, but someday you may actually really like it.”

Rey clapped her hands over her face, her body feeling hot and anxious. 

“Why does all of this stuff have to be _so gross_ ,” she moaned into her palms. “All of it sounds _disgusting!_ ”

“Good!” Cassian said a little cheerfully, followed by a quiet ‘oof.’

“Rey, what’s really important is that you understand that you don’t ever need to do anything you aren’t comfortable with. If you don’t want to so much as hold someone’s hand, you don’t have to. It’s all up to you. You are in control of your own body.”

Rey nodded. She knew that. They have always told her that.

She frowned a little.

“Can girls jerk off?”

Cassian took a deep, uncomfortable breath, and held it. Jyn laughed and gave him a bit of a nod as if excusing him, and he moved a little too quickly out of the kitchen. 

Jyn turned back to her with her own deep breath. “What have you heard about it?”

A little while later, Jyn spooned a bite of ice cream from her bowl.

“Does… does that make sense to you?” she asked Rey, earnestly.

Rey thought she understood, so she nodded, looking down at her own slightly melted scoop of Moose Tracks. She at least had a better general understanding of things than she did at school today. 

“It’s okay to get to know your own body. It’s how you find out what you like, what feels good to you, or what doesn’t,” Jyn said, seriously.

“The girls at school say that only boys should do it. If a girl does it she’s gross.”

Jyn snorted. “The girls at school are either liars or don’t know what they’re missing,” she said humorously. 

Sighing, she put her bowl in the sink. “It’s just like everything else, doll. If it works for you, it works. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too.”

That had made Rey feel better. 

The feeling in her belly, the tingling, the sensation of lightness she couldn’t quite describe, had been practically taking over her body lately. She felt it sometimes when she heard people talk about certain things or when she read particular sentences in stories.

When she looked at Ben Solo. 

She thought about him now, in the privacy of her own bedroom. About his intense brown eyes and his dark, pretty lashes. How they looked at her on the night of the wedding. How tall he was and how big his shoulders were, how one felt under her hand when they danced, his warm skin under his shirt.

Ben’s plush and lovely mouth. Full lips. What would they feel like? If she were fifteen, or perhaps someone else entirely, would he have pressed them to hers that night? Would he have let her touch his dark and beautiful hair?

Would he hold her face when he kissed her? Would he slide his tongue into her mouth? It sounded nasty when she thought about it with anyone else, but with Ben, she’d imagine it’d be nice… perfect even.

Yes, kissing Ben would be perfect. It’d have to be. He would hold her face, massage her tongue with his. His lips would be soft and then hard on hers, as their mouths moved against each other. Yes. Yes, it would be—it would be—

She imagined his dark head of hair lower, kissing between her legs, and her body jolted as she loudly sucked in a gasp. 

She stared up at her ceiling wide-eyed.

“Holy shit,” she croaked into the dark. 

This was _not_ something she was going to write about in her journal.

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


How she let Kaydel convince her to go to the movies on a “double date”, she will never truly know. She agreed to see the movie, sure, but then somehow Cran Beruss and Owen Nalle were going with them and _ohyeahOwentotallylikesyousothiscouldbeagoodthing!_

Kaydel so desperately wanted for her to get a boyfriend and Rey, for the life of her, could not understand why it was so important. 

“We can go on double dates!” Kay had explained once, the two of them, sitting across from each other outside of the school on the concrete benches that were tinted green from years and years of neglectful cleaning practices. 

Someone had spray-painted **Mrs. Holdo is a B-I-C-T-H** on the brick wall that faced the basketball courts and they power washed away the paint, leaving an uneven, nearly-bleached looking section of bricks, while the rest of the school and playground remained dingy and aged. Rey wondered why they didn’t just do the whole courtyard. She didn’t want moss stains on her butt. 

She hated this dumb school.

The movie was fine, some mindless action thing with unrealistic stunts and special effects. Kaydel and Cran made out through half of it and she just pretended that Owen wasn’t even there. He asked her for popcorn once and she declined.

When it was all over, Cran’s Mom picked up the two boys and they waved goodbye as they got into the car. Kaydel beamed, blowing off a kiss. Rey kept her arms tightly folded around her waist in the cold March air, turning with a sigh to look up the street, eyes scanning for Mrs. Solo’s suburban. 

Instead, Ben pulled up to the curb, driving the black Volvo he had bought with the help of his parents that winter. 

Rey’s heart did a giddy little Irish step as she slid into the backseat beside Kay.

Ben didn’t acknowledge them, instead fiddled with the knobs and buttons of the sound system.

The dome light went off when she shut the door and he flipped on the turn signal to enter back into the stream of traffic. 

“How was the movie?” he asked, although they both knew he could care less.

“Fine,” they both answered, disinterested, looking out their selected windows.

“Wow, that good, huh?” he said with sarcastic amusement.

The corner of Rey’s mouth tipped in a smile, just barely.

Kaydel’s phone made a ‘bloop’ noise. Mrs. Solo finally caved and let her have one of Ben’s older ones, with the stipulation she got to see Kaydel’s contacts and monitor her messages and gallery at random. It illuminated her face and the backseat briefly as she checked it, before she let out a deep sigh, her shoulders hitting the backseat with a thud.

“Just so you know,” she said with a touch of haughtiness. “Owen wanted to put his arm around you during the movie, but he was too afraid you’d punch him.”

Rey scoffed. “Good, ‘cause I would have!”

Ben gave a short, amused snort from the front seat while Kaydel huffed.

“Rey, c’mon! Owen is cute and nice and,” she paused. “Funny, sometimes, I guess. Whatever, you have to like _somebody_ eventually!”

Rey watched as Ben reached forward, bumping up the volume a notch or two.

He didn’t drive them all that often, but when he did, she could have sworn he would play certain songs just so she would hear them. As if testing to see if she was paying attention or if she liked it.

Her eyes caught his in the rearview.

“I don’t like any of the boys at our school,” she said, dropping her gaze away to look back at Kaydel, her cheeks feeling warm. “You know that. Besides, it’s not like it matters, you’ll dump Cran before summer and then there’ll be a whole new group of guys to talk to in high school, anyway.”

Kaydel’s mouth dropped, offended.

“What Cran and I have is very special, Rey. We like the same tv shows, he’s a _Libra_ , he says I’m the best girlfriend he’s ever had, which I don’t doubt after he went out with Kandri Corrik for as long as he did,” she rolled her eyes at the mention of the name. 

Kandri Corrik was a popular girl whose parents apparently owned the biggest house in town. Rey wasn’t really sure what everyone’s fascination with her was. She had a similar build to Rey’s; thin, flat-chested. Her hair was dark blonde, stick straight and kind of thin. Her bangs fell in a perfectly straight line across her forehead as if her parents had actually put a bowl over her head to cut them once a week. Her braces were purple, and when she smiled, it made Rey think her teeth were stained from grape juice or soda.

But, every boy in school seemed to be fascinated with her. It was kind of weird, but short of noticing it, Rey didn’t pay much attention to it. As long as the boys left her alone, she was happy. 

Kandri Corrik drove Kaydel _crazy_.

“I just don’t get it,” she ruminated multiple times, in the basement during the Solo’s holiday party, at the Valentine’s dance when Cran and Kandri were still going out and Kaydel watched them dance from the bleachers with arms folded over her stomach. At the spring track and field day, when everyone else was still in pants and long-sleeved shirts, and Kay wore a pair of shorts that she had rolled up at the band to make them shorter. Her leg muscles quivered from the cold and she pulled her arms into her sweatshirt for warmth; her pouty mouth tinted the slightest shade of blue. 

“Well, maybe once we graduate, Poe will stop being a coward and finally ask you out, and then we can all hang out together,” she said, a hint of bitterness leaking into her tone.

It made Rey suck in a breath, her eyes darting to Ben again.

Poe’s crush on Rey started to show last summer and then streaked out like an errant light beam at random times throughout the school year. Granted, she didn’t see him as often as she did during the summer, but he was still around. 

At the Solo’s holiday party, wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, handing her off a holly shaped Christmas cookie, before the group of kids began a game of Pictionary in the tv room. Smiling back from the passenger seat of Ben’s car as they picked up her and Kaydel from the Valentine’s dance (which sadly, Rose was not allowed to attend). Folding his legs to plop next to her on the floor of the Solo’s living room, as they all sat and watched a horror movie one weekend night. 

He never actually said anything, or tried anything, for that matter. He was just sorta… there. Close by, a smile here, a kind word there. 

And she liked Poe. He was nice and funny, and god knows that he was handsome. But…

“What is this?” Rey asked. The song filling the car, wormed into her brain and distracted her briefly from her thoughts.

“It's a Nirvana cover,” Ben said, gaze flashing from the road up to her again. “You like it?”

“Yes.”

“Cool,” Kaydel interrupted sarcastically, forcing Rey to pull her eyes away from Ben’s. How did her millisecond interactions with him seem to pull moments into what felt like elongated, stretched minutes?

“Seriously, if he asks you out this summer, are you going to say yes?” Kaydel asked, eyebrows raising with a coy little smile on her face.

Kaydel was apparently “so over Poe it wasn’t even funny.” Rey was never actually sure though. It was a little hard to keep up. 

“I- I don’t know,” Rey said, softly, not really wanting to talk about it anymore. Especially not in Ben’s car, with him driving, listening to everything. 

She wasn’t sure what she expected to change after the night of her parent’s wedding. When they had danced together first in secrecy, and then right out on the dance floor. When he had smiled down at her when the music ended.

He stayed behind for a little while after his parents, who were certainly drunk and all over each other, giggled and stumbled on their journey down the driveway, arms wrapped around each other. 

The Dj wrapped up cords and equipment, while she, Ben, Cassian, and Jyn, worked on clearing off the tables and folding up linens. When the tables were bare, Cassian nodded looking around the yard.

“I think the rest can wait until the morning,” he reached out and grabbed Jyn’s wrist gently, pulling her close. “Time to put my wife to bed,” he murmured, giving her a kiss. 

Rey shifted uncomfortably next to Ben, who was standing beside her, hands shoved in pockets.

Jyn broke away from the kiss, grinning before she turned to look at them. She gave Cassian a loving pat on his chest. “C’mon babe, let’s go,” gently she moved away from him, her hand still holding his. 

Cassian flashed a confused look from Jyn, back to Rey and Ben, then back to Jyn, as if he didn’t understand why Rey wasn’t following. She continued to tug him away toward the house before he finally turned. 

“Thank you for the help, Ben,” Jyn smiled, turning briefly, before tugging a still confused Cassian into the house.

It was like the crickets amplified their chirping up by three full notches in an attempt to drown out the awkwardness. They stood side by side in the empty yard, neither one moving. 

“Tonight was fun,” she finally broke. She turned to face him and looked up, heart pounding like a backbeat to the symphony of singing night bugs.

She had decided just then, that if Ben wanted to kiss her, she would let him.

Ben ran a hand through his hair and nodded. He didn’t raise his eyes as he told her he did too, before he muttered a goodnight, heading down the driveway, leaving her in the yard alone. 

It was incredibly dumb, but she found herself in bed that night crying over it. 

After that Ben had been just _weird_ around her. Not unfriendly. He didn’t ignore her or tease her like he used to. Instead, it was like… like he was always waiting for her to jump in front of him and yell ‘BOO!’” Sort of wound up or tense. 

They pulled into the Solo’s driveway and he shut the car off, exiting without them, per usual, leaving them in the dark backseat. 

  
  


***

  
  


Graduation came, finding all of them dispersed through the backfield of Ackbar Middle School on a gorgeous day in June, after a painfully boring ceremony. Their neighborhood families naturally managed to migrate towards each other on the lawn—parents, and kids all chatting. 

Rose was forced to wear her olive green dress again, which both Rey and Kaydel assured her would be fine since no one knew she had already worn it twice except for them. 

“They’ll probably make me get married in that stupid thing,” she griped, sitting on the floor of Rey’s room the week before. 

Rey felt bad. Cassian and Jyn offered to let her pick out a new dress, but Rey had found something better. It was white and vintage. They had found it at a thrift store, a weekend activity she and Jyn had fallen into lately. Jyn loved finding vintage band t-shirts, Rey liked finding anything unique and fun she could repurpose and make her own. Jyn had even bought her an old sewing machine at one of the shops, which now sat on a desk in the corner of her bedroom.

“Well,” she offered kindly to her crestfallen friend. “When I get better at sewing, maybe I can make it into something else for you that you’ll love instead?” 

Rose gave her a huge smile and a hug. 

The morning of graduation, Jyn held her hands behind her back. 

“I made something for you,” she said with a grin. 

She held up a crown of white daisies with centers as yellow as egg yolks. The flower’s stems had been meticulously wound around a hidden wire to help hold them firmly in place.

They had looked for a necklace to go with the scalloped neckline of her dress, but everything they tried didn’t seem to fit.

Rey gasped, holding the flower crown before her to examine it with her hands flat. It was _perfect!_

They curled her hair into loose waves and Rey swiped on some mascara, for good measure. 

“Okay, okay,” Jyn called, waving her hand in the air. “All the kids together for a picture!” she paused, looking behind her. “Ben, Paige, c’mon, get in there,” she insisted, her wrist twisting in the air impatiently. They exchanged glances, and probably the only reason why there wasn’t an eye roll included was because it was Jyn who had made the request. 

Kaydel’s arms were still draped around Rey and Rose’s shoulders when Rey looked over to Ben as he came up beside her. He flashed her a flat little smile.

“Congratulations,” his voice rumbled, before looking forward. 

“C’mon guys, _scrunch in!_ Act like you like each other or something,” Jyn teased, face half-hidden behind her cell phone. 

Ben’s hand moved around her waist as he pressed in. She looked up at him again but he did not look down.

“Rey! Honey, smile!”

Looking forward she smiled and looped her arm around his waist, gently pressing her side against his, just a little. 

She heard a cough, just barely, trapped in the column of his throat. 

Laughter broke out to her right, but she didn’t dare look. The heat of Ben’s body pressed against hers again felt like something forbidden. Like they were sharing a moment between them, right in front of everyone else.

She scolded herself for being such a gooey-eyed romantic. 

They were just posing for a picture. Not kissing at sunset. 

Don’t be a weirdo.

Jyn laughed, happily. “That’s a good one guys!” 

The group began to break apart, and Rey’s arm slowly moved to slip away from Ben’s waist.

“Let me get one of just you two,” Jyn said, stepping forward, the phone still up. Rey could feel the tensing within the muscles of Ben’s torso.

Rey was sure she wasn’t breathing, but she kept her arm where it was and smiled anyway. 

Very gently, the grip of Ben’s fingers tightened on her waist. It was for just a fraction of a second, but she was _sure_ she had felt it. 

“Cute,” Jyn smiled, looking up from her phone. Ben’s hand moved from her waist as he walked off without a word, and Jyn gave her a private little wink.

When they printed the pictures out at a drug store kiosk a week later, Rey had acted like it was a mistake when there was a duplicate copy of a certain group photo and the one of her and Ben. She swiftly stole them from the thin cardboard pack, stuffing the one of her and Ben into one of the books in the bookcase of her bedroom. 

The other, she taped to her mirror.

It was the five of them, arms linked, grinning. Paige was in mid-action, attempting to lift Rose up under her knees to make her taller. Rose’s head, tipped back in hysterical laughter, while Kaydel leaned their way, mouth open in a happy laugh, her arms still draped over both Rose’s and Rey’s shoulders. 

Herself, looking forward and smiling, with Ben’s arm wrapped around her waist, his head bent slightly, his eyes closed, as he smelled the flowers in her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Emerald Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmrf_dBIhQI&list=RDvmrf_dBIhQI&start_radio=1&t=12)  
> Chapter title
> 
> [Heart Shaped Box-Glass Animals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX3IdlzwtyE)  
> Car song (We see you, Ben)
> 
> [A Good Song Nver Dies- Saint Motel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29fcv5E52Y)  
> Because I listened to it 1,000 times while writing this chapter


	5. I've been searchin' for a sign through the corners of my mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together and cackles*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) and [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) continue to rule the world like Beyonce sang about. It has been so fun working on this story with them.
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter: Bullying, sexual harassment by boys with crude humor, talk about underage sexual activity
> 
> [](https://imgur.com/GCjfN5A)  
> 

Summer started with the _best_ news.

Kaydel was being shipped off to some overnight camp his parents had put in for with a lottery system and actually fucking _won_.

Seven. _Blissful._ Weeks.

It surprised him at first, how well his sister took the news about being packed up and carted off to some musty cabins in the middle of the woods for the majority of the summer. That was until he found out the camp was co-ed.

Ben thought about how quiet it was going to be, having the house to himself. Sure, he’d be working all summer, but still. He’d be able to stop home at lunch and peacefully eat a sandwich without her pestering him for some favor or to bring her somewhere. He probably wouldn’t even turn any music on or anything. Just sit peacefully in the kitchen and listen to himself chew.

Images of stretching out like a cat across the full length of the couch, or being able to stroll through the house in his boxers without someone complaining about it, gleefully flashed in his mind. Fuck, he wouldn’t have to share the upstairs tv or listen to her and her friends’ chatter as they drifted around the pool—

Briefly, very briefly, a weight dropped in his stomach when he realized that meant he probably wouldn’t see Rey in his backyard all summer.

Would she still come over if Kaydel wasn’t there? Surely he’d still see her at some point though, right? She lived right next door.

It was a dumb thought. A stupid, very dumb thought about a subject he wished he could stop thinking about.

But he couldn’t. He thought about Rey, _a lot_. 

So much so, that he had actually written a song about it. One he would rather eat the page it was written on, than let anyone read, but he still wrote it. Had to get it out of his brain and put it somewhere. He supposed that a song that is written but no one ever gets to hear isn’t really a song at all. Just a private and pathetic poem to remind him that he was torturing himself over a reality that could never be. 

Rey Andor was off-limits. This was something he established when this nettling little fondness started to poke at him last summer. She was too young. She was his neighbor. She was his sister’s best friend and the object of his own best friend’s affection. Even if he had the balls to confess his lingering feelings for her, she’d probably make a face like smelling rotting garbage and tell him he was a dickweed. Maybe she’d even launch the closest available object at him.

He made himself a list once, with the pros and cons of having a crush on her.

All of the pros were self-serving, all of the cons were too realistic. He crumpled up the sheet and shot it into the trashcan. Then, he got nervous. Afraid somehow, someone would find it. He retrieved it and burnt it in the backyard for good measure. 

“We should start a band,” Poe said idly, one afternoon. His face tipped to the sun, shades on, and floating on the back of a giant pink flamingo.

Ben was not far from him, starfished across a jumbo orange slice, both hands and feet dipped in the water. 

The pool all to themselves was like a wonderful, relaxing dreamland. Quiet, peaceful, and no mention of zodiac signs, current crushes, future crushes, celebrity crushes, or fucking lectures about his carbon footprint.

Armitage, who had been unceremoniously dumped by Corde Bravanc for a senior right before prom, was at the corner of the lawn, playing a solitary game of volleyball. 

“You don’t even play an instrument,” he said, bumping the ball in the air off his forearms with focused concentration, watching it above him with his head back. When it descended, he sent it back up into the air with a pop, his fingers spread wide into a set before the ball could smack him in the face. 

He wore a pair of black RayBans that contrasted his alabaster skin harshly this early in the summer. His chest was blindingly bare as he moved anticipatingly under the ball, legs semi-bent, waiting to hit it up again.

“Don’t need to,” Poe said, with a shrug. “I’m the lead singer.”

Ben snorted with a shake of his head and a smile. Of course, he was.

“It might be fun,” Armie said casually, bopping the ball up again.

Ben supposed it could be. Their garage was big enough. His parents probably wouldn’t care if they designated to play on certain nights and wrapped it up before 10 pm.

A miscalculated hit sent the volleyball soaring over the back fence to the Andors. 

“Fuck,” Armie cursed, jogging over to the tall barrier that split the yards. He planted a foot on the head of a stone statue, a boy with a creepy-ass smile on its weathered face, and a fishing pole made to look as though he were fishing. Hux launched himself to look over the flat top of the 7-foot fence, his body flopping against it roughly. His arms folded over the edge onto the other side, pinning him in place.

“Oh, hello ladies!” he said cheerfully.

That got both Ben and Poe’s rapt attention.

“Dig the new suits,” he reached back with one hand and pushed on the earpiece of his glasses, making them appear to jump up on his face a few times.

How the fuck had Ben managed to be friends with such an idiot for so long?

The ball arched back over the fence gracefully, sailing right over Armie’s head.

“How’s your summer so far?” Armie still clung to the fence, like some kind of stranded cat or obnoxious garden decoration. 

They couldn’t hear the responses from where they were in the pool, although both he and Poe remained silent, listening intently.

“That’s cool. Hey, you guys know that just because Kay isn’t around, it doesn’t mean you can’t come, hang out, right?”

 _Bless you, Armitage, truly the best of my friends_ , Ben thought.

“Alright, see ya!”

He jumped down, rubbing under his armpit with an uncomfortable grimace. 

“Who was it?” Poe ripped the words from Ben’s mouth before he could say them. 

“Smalls and Stringbean,” Armie clamored down onto the concrete edge to sit and put his feet in the pool. “Although, have you seen Smalls lately?” he made a gesture in front of his chest, making an impressed face, imitating boobs. “Not so small anymore.”

“Are they coming over?” Ben ignored his comment and tried as hard as he could to mask his own selfish interest.

Armie shook his head. “Nah, Smalls can't. Mr. Tico would have an aneurism if he ever found out, but 'bean said she might some time.”

A nervous knot twisted in his stomach. 

If she did actually come over, would he even get a chance to talk to her, or would Poe jump in and steal her attention before he could? Truth be told, Ben wasn't really great at the whole "talking to girls" thing. Not really. The first two crushes of his adolescence hadn't exactly gained him any further knowledge into the world of socializing with the opposite sex or dating. Any prior experience he had with his female peers was more grating and irritating for him than anything else. 

He just didn't have the natural ability to be charming like Poe did. Instead of a grin and a flirtation, Ben was more apt to rely on uncomfortable silence, like his stupid tongue was a fat, useless slug in his mouth. Then, even when he could muster the words, it usually came out mumbled or misconstrued. 

Not to mention, the whole Rey thing was just… hard. She acted towards him the way she always had, perhaps with a little less of a biting attitude and visual annoyance since her parents’ wedding. But she didn't use any of the other social cues he had picked up from girls who liked him in the past. She didn't giggle or grin at him stupidly. There was no unnatural eyelash blinking or hair twirled on her fingers. No love notes or awkward cornering into spaces where he couldn’t escape to ask him uncomfortable questions about his feelings (or lack thereof). 

But sometimes, she would just _look_ at him and he would feel the weight of it. Her gaze calm and steady and soul-shaking. Like she was prying open his chest and staring straight at his beating heart. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. 

At times, it felt like maybe there _was_ something there, but neither of them knew exactly how to act on it. Or if they should at all.

Maybe it would just be better for everyone if Poe took the initiative and snuffed out the entire situation. Cleared it right off the table by making Rey his girlfriend and officially a person Ben could no longer look at like a fallen star that would burn him if he dared to reach out and touch her. 

He wondered if Poe would jump the gun and ask her out before the school year started. 

Rey celebrated her 14th birthday in the spring, which was also when Poe turned 16. He only knew this by Kaydel osmosis, with her non-stop astrology talk. Poe was an Aries, Rey was a Pisces. Not an ideal match, being fire and water signs, and neighbors in the Zodiac. Ben sometimes wondered if he could shove a spoon deep enough into his ear canal to do permanent damage when she went on one of her astrology tangents. 

There was that one time though, his gut did a little skip when she mentioned that Rey would be better off with a Scorpio. But then he had to remind himself that astrology was stupid bullshit only people like Kaydel took seriously. 

The majority of the summer passed like the same day on repeat. Mowing lawns in the mornings, then Ben, Poe, and Armie in the pool for afternoons, under the deck canopy, out in the sun. No girls.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. 

Gwendoline Phasma (“Phas” as she was known on the Volleyball court as the team's co-captain) had agreed to join their band for who knows what reason. She was heading into her senior year and was bound to be appointed as the team captain. Hands down, she was far too cool and popular to be hanging out with them. Ben assumed Poe had either blackmailed her or made some ridiculous promise to get her to agree to play bass in their odds and ends summer band. 

Gwen was fiercely beautiful, like some kind of intense statuesque Swedish model that never smiled and looked down on everyone around her, literally. She was even taller than Ben by an inch.

The best part about Phas joining the band though was the agreement by the Tico’s to let Paige come over and play keys _only_ for band practice and _only_ if Phas was there and _only_ if they kept the garage door open. 

God, if Paige’s parents _only_ knew how little of concern the boys actually were they would feel like complete morons.

They rehearsed every Wednesday and Sunday night, from 7 to 10. Starting off with some basic, easily learnable classics like _Wish You Were Here_ and _White Room_ , to more modern songs by Green Day and Foo Fighters. They even reworked a version of Paula Abdul’s _Straight Up_ , which was as fun to play as it was ridiculous. 

After about a month or so, they actually started to sound fairly decent. 

On a muggy night in mid-July, Ben pulled off his guitar for a break and moved to the cooler resting in the corner of the garage to toss waters among his sweating and shiny bandmates. 

“We should write some originals,” Poe gasped after chugging back nearly half his water bottle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and put his hands on his hips. “I mean, seriously, how hard could it be?”

Armie took his shirt off and wrapped it around his head like a sloppy turban. He crashed back on the stool behind his drumset with a whoosh of a sigh. “I’ve written a couple. They’re most likely shit, but we could probably make them better if we worked on them together.”

"What about you Solo," Phas, nodded his way, strumming a few deep chords on the bass slung low across her hips. "No way a boy with your haircut and bleak, tonal wardrobe doesn't have a slew of notebooks full of angsty poetry."

He could have been offended by that if it weren't true.

"I don't know..." he began warily, pulling his guitar back over his head to rest the strap over his shoulder. His back was to the open garage door, the light from inside clean and bright, contrasting the quickly darkening night outside.

"Hey, look who it is!" Poe said in a pleasantly surprised tone that let Ben know _exactly_ who would be standing in his driveway when he turned back around.

When he did so, he took a deep breath and tried to look as casual and carefree as possible. 

She was bathed in the vivid synthetic light from the garage that reached out into the night and stretched over the driveway. Wearing a pastel tie-dyed t-shirt, knotted above her belly button, and a pair of frayed cut off shorts. Her hair was piled high on top of her head in a sloppy bun, and she looked all the role of a perfectly beautiful and wholesome American girl, right down to her scuffed white tennis shoes.

"Hey, guys! I don't want to interrupt, I was just headed home from Rose's and thought I'd say hi." 

His eyes screamed in protest to remain on the soft, exposed skin of her stomach, but he managed to rip them away, bowing his head instead to focus on tuning his already perfectly tuned guitar. 

"You're not interrupting, right guys?" Poe didn't give them a chance to say anything, instead, he rushed down the driveway and gently guided her closer to the garage opening. "Can you hang out for a bit? Would you like water or something else to drink?" He flitted off to the corner where there was a stack of folding chairs leaning against the wall. Opening one in front of her, he motioned for her to sit.

Smiling bashfully, she lowered herself onto the seat, curling a loose tuft of hair behind her ear. 

"I could stay for a song or two, I suppose," she said softly, eyes moving across the members of the band standing before her. 

"Awesome!" Poe paused before her briefly, his grin huge and excited. "Great! Okay," he clapped and turned back toward the band, jumping into action, and racing to stand behind the microphone.

It occurred to Ben then that perhaps his friend really did have strong feelings for Rey. He had never seen Poe so giddy and nervous. So transparently eager to impress a girl. Usually, the girls were falling all over him. He hardly had to put in any effort. 

" _Night Riots_ on three," Poe announced, twisting back to look at his bandmates. 

Armie ticked off the countdown with his drumsticks. The start wasn't exactly their smoothest, but eventually, they were playing something that resembled the actual song. It also occurred to Ben that this selection was a little on the nose for their current audience. 

Ben watched Rey's smile bloom across her face as she swayed gently, listening happily. When the song ended, she gave enthusiastic applause, jumping up from her seat. 

They played two more songs before it was time to call it quits and pack it up for the night. 

Ben unplugged his amp and guitar, beginning to wrap the cord as Poe abandoned his mic, standing with Rey in the driveway again. Ben's ears strained, yearning to hear a conversation he was not a part of.

"Have you had a good summer? We were thinking you'd come by for a swim at some point, but we're still anxiously awaiting your arrival," Poe joked flirtatiously. 

"I know, but I feel bad because Rose can't come with me. It's not fair."

"Well, if you really wanted, I could give you my number and you could text me whenever you weren't with Rose…"

Ben rolled his eyes. 

Or she could just look out her backdoor and over the fence.

Poe and his slick pick up strategies. 

"I don't have a cell phone, yet. I like to stay off the grid, you know? Big Brother is watching and all that," she joked.

Ben kept a humored snort to himself. There was no fucking way Poe understood that reference. 

"Uh, right. Well, still. It wouldn't be summer without an afternoon in the Solo's pool. We miss you guys."

"Thanks, Poe. That's sweet."

She may as well have ruffled his hair and called him a good boy. 

Ben laid his guitar down into the velvet lining of his case, biting back a smile. He reminded himself he should be supporting this pursuit, not secretly gleeful that Rey wasn’t falling for the basic bullshit smooth-talk. 

"Would you like me to walk you home?" 

Something about that made Ben's spine go rigid and his lungs feel icy. Was Poe finally going to put a move on her? Ask her out on a date?

Was he really going to have to stand here like an asshole in his own garage while his friend swept his dream girl right out from under him?

 _Wait… dream girl? Since when_ _—_

Rey laughed and what a lovely, musical sound it was. 

"Don't be silly. It's just next door."

"Ah, yes, but it’s a full moon, you see,” Poe said, pointing up to the night sky. 

Looking up, Rey gave another small little laugh. “So I need to be worried about what? Werewolves lurking behind bushes?”

More like horny boys trying to tongue-bathe you by moonlight, Ben thought bitterly, snapping the locks on his case closed.

“I’m going to walk Paige home,” Phasma said, holding her long rectangular bass case in one hand with Paige’s keyboard tucked under her other arm. “See you fuckers on Wednesday.”

“See ya Wednesday,” Paige hefted her folded cross stand over her shoulder and shot Ben a secret, excited look before she turned and caught up with Phasma beyond the garage light cast on the driveway.

“—honestly, thank you though,” Rey was saying when his attention was pulled back to her and Poe. Putting one leg behind the other as she backed away gently, raising her hand in a wave goodbye and Ben’s eyes finally met with hers. “Goodnight guys, thanks for the show.”

Both he and Poe watched as she disappeared around the corner of the bushes that separated their yards. 

Poe was still for a moment before he stumbled back, both his hands pressed dramatically over his heart. 

“Did you hear that?” he said in a strained voice, twisting and turning, stumbling his way back up the driveway. “It was the sound of Rey Andor snapping my heart in two,” he dropped onto the seat she had once occupied, looking boneless and exhausted.

Armie shook his head, collapsing his snare stand. 

“I warned you. It was never going to happen, dude,” he said in a flat tone. 

“I know,” Poe pouted, closing his eyes with a defeated little whimper. “Can’t blame a guy for trying though.”

This was… this was news to Ben. 

“Why is it never going to happen?” Ben asked, confused. 

Poe flopped an arm over his forehead and heaved a sigh. “Oh sure. Pour salt in my wound and laugh while you do it, Solo.”

Ben frowned looking from Poe to Armitage, who was staring at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“Are you being facetious or are you really that much of an idiot?”

Ben’s frown deepened. “Is that a trick question?”

Armie slapped his hands over his face in mocked horror. “Oh my ass, you really are that fucking stupid,” he mumbled through his fingers, eyes wide with frustration. 

Ben felt a pang of panic in his chest. A dart of fear that hit like a bullseye. He had been so worried about Poe this whole time, that it was entirely possible that someone else may have been in the picture too? 

"Should I tell him?” Armie asked, looking to Poe, who had melted further down the chair, draped over it like a Victorian widow with the vapors.

"No,” Poe moaned with a bit of a chuckle. “If I have to suffer, he can suffer too.”

 _Some friends_ , Ben thought. It was better just to drop the topic than press it any further. Save the risk of outing his embarrassing little fixation on the girl next door.

For once, Ben wished his sister was around so she could absentmindedly spill the beans on what was going on with her best friend.

  
  


***

He didn’t see her again until the end of July.

The Andors yard was his last client for that day. He was looking forward to rolling the lawnmower back to the shed at his house and immediately jumping in the pool on this disgustingly hot day. 

Feeling like he was melting, he cut the engine to the mower and lifted the bottom of his tank to swipe some sweat from his brow. He used to work without a shirt on, but this year he had one of his clients request he cover himself while working, lest he sends her 12-year-old daughter into a hormonal tailspin. 

She even used the words “borderline pornographic” to describe his shirtless state, which Ben couldn’t help but find slightly amusing in its dramatic exaggeration. 

But he wanted the money, so he supposed he would just have to deal with the annoying tan lines instead. 

The music from his headphones had drowned out her approach, and he jumped a little when he looked up and saw Rey standing there with a glass of iced tea. 

He tugged the buds from his ears, _Blondie_ ’s voice falling away as his mouth hung open stupidly.

“Hey,” he managed to grunt out.

She was wearing a yellow striped bikini top that tied in the front. His eyes didn’t know where to go, as they pinged from her belly button, over her tanned summer skin and freckled shoulders, across a shallow cleft of cleavage that was only accentuated by the thinnest strip of pale white skin that ran along the fabric of her top. 

Her eyes. He should just look in her eyes.

_Oh no, that’s way worse!_

He looked down, gaze landing to the grass.

“Anyway,” she continued, and he realized he had absolutely no idea what she had said to him. “I thought you might be thirsty,” she held up the glass and he took it with only just a minor tremble in his fingers.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, bringing the tea to his lips. It was unsweetened, just the way he liked it. He gulped the whole thing down in a single head tip.

“Wow,” she laughed playfully, taking back the empty glass. “I guess I was right, you were thirsty.”

He nodded, his breath a little short. 

“Do you want to go for a swim?”

Had he just said that? It sounded like him, sure. But there was no way it could have actually been him though, right?

Her eyes widened a little and the faintest hint of color seeped into her cheeks.

“S-sure,” she tossed her thumb in the direction of her house. “I—um, lemme, uh, lemme just go get a towel.”

He nodded, still not believing he had actually asked her, as he watched her disappear into the house. 

His heart shot off like a rocket. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuckfuckfuck!_

Quickly he pushed the mower back into his yard, nearly yeeting the thing into the shed and bounding into the pool area. He looked around frantically. 

Where should he sit? Should he already be in the pool when she got there? Casually draped over one of the silly pool floats his mom liked to buy? Or maybe leaning against the siding on the shallow end? Perhaps casually laid across the diving board with his head propped up on his hand and his abs flexed?

Behind him, the fence clinked announcing her arrival and he decided his best plan of action was to just dive headlong into the deep end. 

When he resurfaced, she had tossed her towel aside and she was lowering herself into the pool, step by step in the shallow end. He watched as the water crept up her bare legs, hips, and then torso, very, very happy that his own body was currently hidden beneath the water.

Rey had once been stick straight and skinny. Borderline scrawny even, all gangly limbs, knobbly knees, and sharp elbows. 

Now her body seemed to be more fleshed out, softer, with gentle, graceful lines and a tiny waist that tucked in perfectly above slightly curved hips.

On the last step, she dove into the water, disappearing for a moment, before emerging in the center of the pool.

Head and shoulders above the surface, she let out a relieved sigh. 

“Oh my God, that feels so good!” she exclaimed, before floating onto her back, eyes closed. “I’ve missed this pool,” she sighed wistfully. 

And with that, the tension that had been haunting him released. Ben chuckled, floating on his own back and looking up at the puffy clouds that drifted lazily across the sky.

They remained like that for a while. Simply enjoying the remainder of the day and each other’s quiet company. Then, she challenged Ben in a pool noodle joust.

He won the first round, she the second. 

“Best two out of three,” he countered, jumping back in his pool float and grabbing the red foam column he had been using before it could drift away from him. 

“You’re going down Solo,” she threatened teasingly, holding her blue noodle up like a baseball bat.

Only this time, instead of knocking him from atop his float with a strategic poke or jab, she instead sabotaged them both, launching from her raft and tackling him, causing them both to go plunging into the deep end. 

They came up laughing in a spurt of mist and steam. 

He hadn’t even noticed that the sun was almost set and the world was darkening around them. 

Swimming to the side of the pool, he pulled his arm up on the concrete lip, catching his breath as she swam to come and rest beside him. She gave him a wet grin as she faced him, her hand holding her in place. Their legs kicked lazily below the surface as the pool lights blinked on, making their skin glow in the water below. 

“Do you like high school better than middle school?” she asked, breath still a little heavy and ragged.

He shrugged slightly, surprisingly feeling very relaxed. “I guess. I mean, they’re both school, so it sucks either way. But it’s a little easier to be yourself in high school, I think. You can find your own group or interests. There are more options to find something you like or be around the people you actually _want_ to be around.”

Nodding thoughtfully, she looked off to the side. 

“Like Paige?”

Ben hesitated slightly, “Sure, or even just people who have the same likes and hobbies that you do.” Why on earth was she asking about Paige?

She nodded again, eyes not coming back to his. Her teeth worried at her lower lip and he couldn’t pull his eyes from the action. “Would it be okay for a Freshman to go out with a Junior, or would that be like,” a wet, glistening shoulder peaked out of the water quickly. “I don’t know, taboo, or something?”

And goddammit his heart was thudding painfully on its descent towards the bottom of the pool.

She did like Dameron after all.

“No,” he said quietly, perhaps even a little miserably. “No, it really wouldn’t be a problem.”

Finally, she looked back at him, her mouth opening slightly.

The sound of the sliding door ripping open stole away whatever words she was about to say.

“Ben, time for dinner!” his mother shouted out to the yard before her eyes fell on them. “Oh! Hi Rey…” her eyes did a quick little back and forth between them a few times before she smiled. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Hi Mrs. Solo,” Rey’s tone was odd as if slightly tinged with a hint of wrong-doing. Pushing away from the side of the pool, she swam quickly to the stairs at the shallow end. She got out hastily, grabbing her towel and wrapping it over her shoulders, making her look like she was wearing a bright striped cape. “Thanks for the swim,” she said with a small smile and a quick turn. She was out the gate at lightspeed while Ben still leaned against the side of the pool, stunned.

Leia cast Ben a look and he rolled his eyes. 

“We were just swimming, Mom.”

She raised her hands in defense, “I didn’t say a single word, Benjamin.”

Ben groaned and swam towards the deep end ladder. 

She didn’t have to. 

  
  


***

The day Kaydel came home from camp, Rey and Rose crafted a “Welcome Home!” poster with markers and glitter and waited for her at the end of the driveway. They jumped and waved and shouted when the Solo’s Suburban turned onto the corner of their street.

Kaydel was out of the vehicle and in their arms as soon as the car parked. 

“I missed you guys so much,” she groaned into Rey’s shoulder. When they pulled back from each other, her smile huge, her face was tan and freckled from the summer sun. “I have so much to tell you,” she whispered, eyes lit with excitement, far from the ears of Mrs. Solo.

Rose was given permission to have dinner with the Solo’s that night as a belated celebration of Kaydel’s 15th birthday the week before. Mr. Solo cooked steak kabobs on the grill with fresh, golden ears of corn. Ben was not home for dinner and Rey kind of wanted to know where he was, but was obviously not going to ask.

When their meal was over, Kaydel’s parents went inside, leaving the girls gathered around the table, whispering.

“Okay,” Kaydel began seriously, her face lit by the large citronella candle between them. “I had a camp boyfriend. His name was Josh—”

“What happened to Cran?” Rey asked, confused. 

Kay waved her hand dismissively. “He’s going to Dagobah for high school, it wasn’t meant to be. Anyway, Josh was sixteen and he had the bluest eyes I have ever seen,” stealing a glance over her shoulder towards the sliding door, she leaned in even further. 

“We went to second base.”

Rose jolted back in her seat, eyes the size of saucers, mouth wide open. 

“Oh my gosh!”

Kaydel shushed her with a giggle. “He wanted to go to third base, but like, I’m sorry, the camp only had cold water and we could only shower in the morning. I wasn’t going to put his sweaty penis in my mouth.”

Rey didn’t realize penises sweat, but in reality, she really didn’t know much about them besides what they had told her in the health assembly last year. She’d never actually seen one outside of a cartoon drawing. 

“So,” Rose began softly, leaning in over the table again, her face golden from the candle. “He touched your boobs.”

Kaydel nodded. “And I let him kiss them too.”

Rose’s eyes were huge again. 

“Was it… good?” Rey asked, squirming a little, trying not to imagine the sensation. Or more specifically a dark head of hair hovering over her own chest.

“It was kind of boring actually. He just lapped at them like an excited puppy or something. Oh! I read this smut book one of the older girls snuck into camp and apparently they're supposed to suck on them and bite your nipples and stuff.”

“Bite them?” Rose whispered with a squeak of terror in her voice. She pressed her palms over her own and hunched in her shoulders with a grimace. 

Rose’s boobs had quadrupled in size in little under a year. She now filled a c-cup. She loathed them and the unwanted attention they brought.

“Like gently,” Kaydel continued. “Not like _gnawing_ on them or anything. Like a tug or two. Your nipples are erogenous zones, which means you have a bunch of nerves in them or something.”

That was not something Rey needed to be told. Her fingers wandered the natural plains, valleys, and peaks of her body beneath her covers at night. She was quite familiar with which places made her belly light up like a spark. 

“The night of the final bonfire, we snuck into the woods and,” again she looked to the sliding door. “He rubbed his knee against me and I’m pretty sure I had an orgasm.”

Rey wasn’t going to steal her thunder, but she was certain that if she really had, she wouldn’t just be “pretty sure” about it. Again, Rey was now more than familiar with how to ignite her body into a full-blown fireball from those perfectly placed and timed sparks. 

“Are you guys going to stay together through school?” Rey asked.

Kaydel rolled her eyes. “No way. He lives like three hours away. He might as well be on another planet.” 

Rey supposed that made sense.

They had three more weeks of summer left and they vowed that they were going to spend as much time together as possible. 

Days went back to their usual summer cycle of floating in the pool and switching off dinners between the houses.

Some nights, during band practice, they would sit in the grass by the house, an attentive and appreciative audience. Kaydel begged for the band to let her sing a song, instead, she was handed off an egg shaker and a kazoo. 

Much to Rey’s surprise, and perhaps relief, Poe’s attention to her seemed to seriously wane toward the end of August. He was still really nice and joked around with her and everything, but it was different somehow.

One day, when she showed up a little early to go for a swim with Kay, she realized why. 

She pushed open the gate and looked up to see Kaydel sitting in Poe’s lap at the table, deep in a face-swallowing kiss. Poe’s hand palmed at her breast from under the fabric of her suit, Kaydel’s hands buried deep in Poe’s brown curls. 

They both jumped, hands flying from each other when Rey audibly gasped. Kaydel relaxed in a visible sigh of relief and hopped off of his lap quickly. Poe bit his lip and avoided Rey’s gaze for the rest of the afternoon. 

That night, when she and Kay laid in Rey’s bed together, ready for sleep, Kaydel sat up, her head propped up by her hand.

“You’re sure you’re not mad about Poe?” she whispered. 

Rey snorted to the ceiling. “No. Not even a little bit.”

Kaydel smiled, laying her head back down to the pillow and rolling on her back. “Good. I never actually stopped liking him, you know,” she confessed to Rey and the ceiling. “I just thought that if maybe you liked him too it was the right thing to pretend like I didn’t anymore. But I really, _really_ do, Rey.” 

At that moment, Rey thought about confessing her feelings for Ben. Just coming clean and telling Kay about how her brother gave her butterflies and goosebumps and a heart that felt like it was floating above her body. But soon enough, Kaydel’s deep, sleep wrung breaths, let Rey know that she was no longer awake.

Rey stared up at her ceiling and wondered if she’d ever actually find the courage.

  
  


***

  
  


Crait High School opened on the last Tuesday night in August for a Freshman orientation with both parents and incoming students. They were allowed to tour the school, meet their new teachers, and get a generalized layout of their academic home for the next four years.

“Any of this look even remotely familiar to you?” Cassian joked, his arm wrapped casually around Jyn’s waist as they strolled the hallway. His other was draped over Rey’s shoulder in a bit of a walking group hug. A relaxed and loving show of affection.

This was something Rey sometimes struggled with—showing affection. Giving a hug where she felt it was needed, allowing a squeezed hand, or a head placed on a shoulder. This realization came to her one day in the Solo’s kitchen, when she watched as Mrs. Solo ran her hand over Kaydel’s head and gave her a kiss to the top of it, and Kay smiled, looping her arms around her mother’s waist for a hug. Like it was normal. _Because_ it was normal. 

Rey herself had found immediate comfort with Kaydel, but she figured that was just because Kay was openly affectionate without apprehension towards her. It wasn’t weird to hold Kay’s hand when they were younger because, in the instances that she had, she had needed to. And somehow her friend just understood that. 

Just the thought of touching used to make her nervous, but now, in its own unhurried sort of way, it was becoming increasingly more natural. 

She rested her head on Cassian’s shoulder one night as they watched a movie on the couch, and he lifted his arm to hug her close, with a kiss to her hair. Another night in the kitchen, Jyn was upset about something that happened at work, sputtering and swearing through gritted teeth, taking her frustration out on a pan. Rey enclosed her in a hug around the shoulders, and Jyn dropped the sponge and pan, soap-sudded hands, lifting up to rest over Rey’s arms.

Jyn sighed. “I so needed that,” she said softly. 

In the English wing of the school, Jyn hummed with a tone of theatrical thoughtfulness. She didn't actually attend Crait High School, and neither did Cassian, but they were making a silly little game out of it. “I think I got my first detention in this classroom here,” she said, looking up to the room number painted above the door. “But it’s really hard to say, there were just so _many_.”

On the first day of school, they piled into Ben’s Volvo. Ben and Paige in the front, Kay, Rose, and Rey chatting excitedly in the back.

Rey picked out a long dark blue dress with small white flowers on it, covered by a jean jacket for her first day. She watched from the back as Paige turned to Ben in the front seat, her hair flying from the wind of the open window, laughing. She was so pretty it almost hurt to look at her… especially when she was looking at Ben. Paige flipped the visor down and applied a deep burgundy lipstick expertly. 

“The first rule on your first day, ladies,” she said over her shoulder, “What happens at Crait, stays at Crait.” She shucked off her conservative blue button-down and slipped on a slightly shredded black band t-shirt over her tank top.

“Paige is so fucking cool,” Kaydel said, as they trailed behind Ben and Paige, making their way through the student parking lot. “Maybe I’ll start changing my outfits at school too,” she said absentmindedly as the bell rang.

Neither Rose nor Kay were in Rey’s homeroom. She was assigned a locker all the way back in the science wing. It was a tiny thing, half the size of her middle school locker and she wondered how she was going to fit everything she needed for the year in there.

“Hey, look at us! Locker neighbors” said a friendly voice behind her. Turning, she faced the handsome boy with the mesmerizing cornrows who sat in front of her that morning in homeroom. 

Something Abrams. He was the only one in front of her in alphabetical order. 

“Finn,” he smiled and his smile was kind of... perfect.

“Rey,” she offered her hand and he shook it. 

He stepped beside her, spinning his lock dial. When his locker opened, the top compartment above her head popped open, nearly catching her in the forehead.

“Whoops, sorry about that,” he apologized kindly, closing the thing. “How has the first day been treating you?”

Rey let out a sigh and slumped against her locker. “Okay, I guess. This school is just so _big_ and this locker is East of nowhere!” 

Finn nodded with a laugh.

“I know, right? I figure I’ll have to carry all of my books for my classes before lunch with me because there’s no way I’m making it all the way down here and back to class on time.”

Rey nodded, thinking she would probably have to do the same. 

Finn shut his locker. “Where ya headed to next?”

Pulling her folded up schedule out of her jacket pocket, she spread it out, looking at it with a frown. 

“Biology with Mr. Antilles.”

Finn looked at his schedule, tucked into the front flap of a binder. “Sweet! Me too!”

And that was how she instantly became friends with Finn Abrams.

  
  


*** 

Snap Wexley had to be the most annoying human being she had ever met. He was in _three_ of her classes and was a relentless class clown, constantly interrupting and slowing down the lesson plan with purposely stupid questions.

Rey didn’t love being stuck in school all day, but she at least appreciated learning and her education. If she kept her grades high enough, she could get into the college of her choice. That alone was worth paying attention, during class.

Snap made her want to slam his forehead to his desk every time she heard his stupid voice. It cut through her concentration like sharp scissors through silk.

And of course, he seemed to have a particular focus on her.

“Hey, Andor,” he whispered to her during an exam. She tried to ignore him, but he started launching little rolled up balls of paper onto her desk. 

With an irritated sigh, she rolled her eyes and looked his way. 

He held up a crude and pornographic depiction of a woman on all fours and a man taking her from behind, giving a thumbs up. 

Motioning back and forth between them, he tipped his head toward the door. Then he raised a fist to his face, simulating a blow job, with a dick poking into his cheek. Around him, his cronies snickered into their hands.

Rey held up her pencil, giving it a gentle caress of her fingers for show, before she brutally snapped it in half over her thumbs and tossed the pieces onto his desk. That sent his henchmen into a fit of hysterics in the quiet classroom, gaining the attention of the teacher who demanded they get back to their tests. 

She vowed that if he ever actually touched her, she would throat punch him so hard it would leave a dent.

After a few weeks of openly “going out”, Poe and Kaydel started holding hands in hallways. Rey had to admit, they made a great looking couple.

If Ben had any opinions on the matter, he kept them to himself. Not like Rey talked to him all that much anyway. He gave them rides to school, but they took the bus home because he had track practice. In the mornings, he usually kept his attention focused on Paige. 

The other girls in school were not so supportive of Poe and Kay’s blossoming relationship. 

Someone had written “Ugly Whore” on Kay’s locker in Sharpie to which Kaydel just sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“ _Envy_ is ugly, not me,” she declared airily with a hair flip. Truthfully, Rey suspected she was actually tickled being the most hated Freshman in the class. Everyone knew who she was. She was the girl that managed to tie down Poe Dameron. For now, anyway. 

“When we find out who wrote that on your locker, we’re going to make their life a living hell,” Paige vowed to her from the front seat of the Volvo the morning after the graffiti appeared. It was painted over by the end of school that day, barely making it 24 hours.

Overall, high school wasn’t all that different from middle school. The halls were a little less chaotic zoo and more like schools of socializing fish, all aware of needing to get to their next destination in a timely fashion.

Sometimes in the chaos of the shifting bodies, she managed to see Ben. His headphones always on, head tipped back and higher than nearly everyone else's, his eyes set off in the distance. Juniors and Seniors had later lunches than the Freshmen and Sophomores (a constant gripe of Kaydel’s) so she really only ever spotted him on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between the second and fifth periods and occasionally on Tuesdays and Thursdays after the fourth period in varsity hall.

Not like she was purposely looking for him or anything.

Surprisingly, despite being a senior, Phasma always greeted her with a nod of acknowledgment when she passed by, usually accompanied by a small wave and half-smile from Paige. They were together a lot. Rey wondered if the two of them were best friends, like her, Kay, and Rose. 

One day in Biology, she heard a small hissing noise to her left. Frowning, she looked to Finn, who was seated across the aisle from her. His eyes motioned to a note in his hand. 

She glanced at Mr. Antilles, his back to the class as he wrote on the chalkboard. 

Opening her hands, she caught the note swiftly, tucking it under her desk to open it quietly.

_You’re friends with Rose Tico?_

Rey smiled down at the note. Mr. Antilles was still writing, so she quirked an eyebrow with a nod. 

Finn tucked his lips in his mouth for a moment, eyes darting to the front of the class. 

“Introduce me,” he mouthed, his hands pressed together flat in a pleading prayer. 

Her grin widened. 

  
  


***

  
  


The Snap thing continued to annoyingly escalate. 

For Halloween, she dressed up like her childhood hero, Kira, from _Galaxy Gals_. Loudly, Snap announced he used to masturbate to Kira’s comics. 

The week before Christmas break, he held a mistletoe above her head _twice_ with raised eyebrows.

On Valentine’s Day, there was a handwritten card taped to her locker.

**_Your body has 206 bones in it. Want another one?_ **

“You should go to the principal,” Finn urged, and Rose nodded at the lunch table beside him in agreement. 

“You should tell Jyn,” Kaydel encouraged, turning to look at Poe for support, as they sat in the bleachers at the basketball jamboree, the sound of squeaking sneakers all around them. “She’ll probably light him on fire and Cassian could bury him in the garden.”

That at least made her laugh. 

“Seriously,” Armitage said, pulling her aside in the hallway one day, between classes. Obviously, Poe had told him. 

“Do you want me and the boys to have a chat with him?” he subconsciously cracked the knuckles on one of his hands and Rey shook her head. 

She didn’t know why she didn’t tell anyone of authority. Snap wasn’t exactly threatening, just more annoying and exhausting. She had lost count of how many times she told him to go fuck himself.

On St. Patrick’s Day, he wore a painfully green shirt that said: “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

“Well?” he asked expectantly, gesturing to the fly of his jeans. 

“Are you going to supply the machete and magnifying glass I’ll need to find it?” she asked, innocently. 

Per usual, his gang of socially inept hyenas laughed as he shook his head.

At the end of the day, she opened her locker, shoving some books inside and grabbing her coat. Distracted, she started a little when she looked up to find Snap standing beside her. 

“Hey,” he said, his jaw tense, his eyes shifty.

“Hey,” she replied, slamming her locker door closed and facing him head-on, defiantly. 

His eyes drifted down to the floor slowly. “Listen,” he said, quietly, almost looking ashamed of himself for once. 

But it was too late. Rey had had enough.

“No Snap, you listen! I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s _not_ mine! You need to figure out your shit and stop being a complete _asshat_ , pig-fucker _dickhead_ to me all the time. I’ve had enough!”

During her rant, she watched as his eyes raised slowly to her face, before drifting up further, eventually over her head completely, widening slightly as his mouth slowly fell open.

_Good. Maybe something was finally getting through his stupid concrete skull._

“I don’t know who told you how to talk to girls, but whoever it was, they grossly misled y—”

A warmth took over her back. Above her head, an arm leaned against the locker, forming a protective bracket around her. A hand, big, certain, and _confident_ , curled over her hip, gently guiding her back against him.

“Everything okay here?” Ben’s familiar deep voice reverberated through her ribcage. His mouth dangerously close to her ear, his cheek pressed against her hair. 

There was no breath left in her to finish her statement.

Her entire body lit up. Humming, _glowing_ —as everything inside of her short-circuited, causing fusions of sparking, elicit, atomic flames to streak across her insides and ripple under her skin. 

Snap’s face turned so red, it almost bordered on purple. His eyes stayed wide, seemingly locked on Ben’s, stammering something unintelligible before he stormed off in a hurry. 

Rey couldn’t move. She could feel every breath Ben took, his chest firm against her back. His grip over her hip loosened as if to move his hand away. Her own snapped over it, pressing it back in place, her fingers slotting between the gaps of his, curling into his palm. His breathing stopped. 

“Thank you,” she said softly, turning her face a little, his cheek now brushing her temple. She didn’t dare attempt to look up, knowing she wouldn’t be able to survive it. 

She had turned 15 a little over a week ago. She wondered if it would make any kind of difference... 

His arm moved from its spot above her head, on the locker, and dropped to her waist—his wide palm hot and firm, her body held steadily in his hands. 

That feeling would revisit her imagination, seeping in, night after night after night for months to come.

She closed her eyes and felt his warmth slip away. His hands, gone.

And so was he, when she finally turned around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [How About Now- Grandson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz2gBJaTnJY)  
> Chapter Title
> 
> [All For You- Night Riots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S4sGMcNw04)  
> Band practice song
> 
> [Don't Watch Me Dancing- Little Joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR-2L0RTUgQ)  
> The longing
> 
> [im used to it- Powfu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AuzANuYggk)  
> TEEN FEEEELLLSSS!


	6. You're all I ever wanted I think I'll regret this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **staticky voice over loudspeaker** This train is officially headed to Hornytown with a stop in Angstville. Please sit back and enjoy the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say it everytime but [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) and [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) are the best.
> 
> Trigger warning: Underage drinking and drug use

[ ](https://imgur.com/7SWt8N7)

“We’re getting the band back together,” Poe proclaimed, shoving a hand-drawn flyer calling for open auditions to a school-wide talent show, into Ben’s face at the lunch table. 

“No, we aren't,” Ben grumpily dismissed him, only giving the flyer a quick side glance before waving it away with the back of one hand and shoveling a spoonful of saccharine-sweet fruit cocktail into his mouth with the other. He made a face. God, where did the school find this shit anyway? There had to be zero nutritional value in this slop.

Poe hummed in false understanding, slapping the paper on the tabletop, kicking a leg over the bench, and straddling it to face him.

“Yeah, we are, I already signed us up. That was a statement, not a question,” he reached over to Ben’s tray and stole a french fry, popping it into his mouth. “The _real_ question is how do I convince you to let us play “ _Summer’s Song._ ” 

How was it possible to be friends with someone, and yet, also hate them so deeply? 

“That’s not happening,” Ben said firmly. It was enough that they had spotted the lyrics in his notebook and thought it was good enough to work into a real song. It was too much when Armie wove together a melody that made Ben feel like his heart was being stretched and strung out from his chest through the invisible bars of sheet music; feelings fluttering in the air like clothing on a line.

It would be devastating to have to play it in front of a crowd full of his peers. He might actually die from it. 

Not to mention, what if Rey heard it? What if she heard it and _knew?_

He was still recovering from his ballsy and other-worldly experience of having her in his arms a few weeks ago. The feeling of her small body against his, between his hands. Just thinking about it made him have to anxiously drag those hands through his hair and take a deep breath. 

Because he had _done_ that. Strolled right up behind her and pulled her into him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she belonged to him. 

And she _let_ him.

And yeah, he had all but murdered that douchey little swamp-rat with his eyes when he did it, but it was more than that.

When Poe had told him Rey was being harassed by some shitty little neck-beard, his immediate reaction was to hunt the jerk-off down and just bloody his fists on him until he got the message that talking to girls about your Vienna-sausage sized dick was not something that was considered acceptable behavior. 

Especially his girl. Or... one of his girls. He would have done the same for Rose. Maybe without the hip-holding or whatever. The details were not important. Rey needed help, so he helped. 

He had every intention of catching the smarmy-shit somewhere in private, where an adult couldn’t intervene until he got his point across. Instead, he happened to be coming from Physics II at the end of the day. It was easier for him to go the other way most days, but occasionally he liked to switch it up. Particularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because more often than not, he would catch a glimpse of Rey at her locker, all the way at the end of the hall.

And there they were. He could tell by her body language: her raised shoulders, her feet apart in a fighting stance—that whatever was being said was being done so in the Rey Andor spewing verbal-acid kind of way.

She could take care of herself. He knew that. But a little extra encouragement to stay away from her couldn’t hurt. 

When the teenage skidmark sputtered and slinked away, Ben’s chest roared with exhilaration. 

He wanted to keep her against him. Wanted to turn her and plant a hot, untamed kiss right on her mouth so everyone could see that she was protected by him. That he would be there the next time some creepy, fuckbag tried to mess with her. He’d be there, every time.

It had occurred to him that he was riding the high of a weird possessive energy buzz and he needed to get a fucking grip.

But then, when he tried to move away, her hand linked with his, pressing it back to her body. 

Held between his palms, he imagined far more. Things he shouldn’t be thinking about with her beautiful young form pressed against his. It made him no better than that creep he had just scared off.

And that was… something. Something that instead of feeding his possessive flame, snuffed it out, rattling him entirely. 

He pulled away from her and booked it to the nearest hallway, shaking out his hands as if he had just seared them against a hot surface. In a way, he supposed he had.

So, no. There was no fucking _way_ they were playing _Summer’s Song_ at the stupid, fucking talent show. 

Rey seemed to have taken the encounter for what it appeared to be on the surface—a stupid ballsy show to get her bully to back off. Nothing in her behavior since had changed. He had avoided the awkwardness of it and really didn’t plan to risk outing himself again to the girl who was very clearly not interested. 

It was bad enough he had to deal with Kaydel afterward.

The day after the "incident", Kay was leaning against the hood of his car after the last bell, arms crossed, brow furrowed. 

“What?” he barked, walking right past her to the driver’s side, already cranky from the school day and not really wanting to deal with Kaydel-drama. He had twenty minutes till track practice and if he didn’t get an iced coffee, he might strangle someone. 

“Oh nothing,” she said with casual fakeness. “I just found out from a girl in my ceramics class, who found out from the guy who sits next to her in Bio, who was told by a guy in Snap Wexley’s gym class, that my _brother_ and my _best friend_ are apparently going out and _no one_ bothered to tell _me!_ ” 

Ben rolled his eyes so hard he was afraid they’d get lost in the back of his brain.

“Kay—”

“And you’re just _making out_ all over the hallways for everyone to see before either of you could bother to let me know about it!”

“ _What?_ That’s not even—”

“I just don’t know why you guys didn’t just tell me! You know I don’t like being left out!” she said with a stern pout and a little foot stomp.

Ben slumped against the driver’s side of his car, dragging a hand down his face. He was tired, but never too tired to fuck with his sister.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said quietly, folding his arms over his stomach. Giving his best teen-actor sigh, he let his head fall back and tried not to let a grin sneak onto his face.

“It’s just that I’ve kept my feelings for Rose secret for so long; I couldn’t _take_ it anymore!” he shouted, pushing himself off the car.

Kaydel looked back at him, mouth open, eyes confused. 

“I was—I was talking about… are you screwing around with Rose _too_ , Ben?!” she screeched hysterically. 

He had to laugh. Had to. It was just too easy.

“I’m not screwing around with either of them, Kay, chill out.”

“You’re not funny!” she snapped.

“Ehh,” he shrugged a little with a wince. “I’m a _little_ funny.”

She shook her head with a huff, jaw rolling. “So you’re not going out with Rey?”

“No, but good to know you would disapprove so strongly of it.”

She took a step back, affronted. “I didn’t say I disapproved, I was just mad you guys wouldn’t tell me before you did…” There was a dangerous twinkle in her eye as she stepped forward again, letting him know, somehow, someway, he had betrayed himself.

“Why? Are you _thinking_ about asking Rey out?” a coy, feline smile tipped her lips. 

Fuck. 

He had two choices: lie about it or lie about it believably. 

Scoffing, he shook his head, hitting the keypad to unlock his car. 

“Absolutely. And then when she says yes, I’m taking her on the perfect first date to get a full-size portrait of you tattooed on my back,” he placed a foot inside the car, pausing as he folded an arm on the roof, the door open. “Hey, I'm glad we had this talk. You know, it went a lot smoother than the one we had about _you_ deciding you were going to start dating _my_ best friend!"

Ben, who had the pleasure of learning about said relationship by walking out of his house to find his sister practically grinding against his friend over the steps of the shallow end of the pool, barked a laugh of indignation at his own words.

Kaydel huffed again, folding her arms across her chest, seemingly realizing full well she was being a hypocrite. 

"That was different!" she shouted as he started the car. 

He turned up the volume on his dashboard and gestured to his ears as if he couldn't hear her.

  
  


***

  
  


“I found it!” Kaydel announced triumphantly, slamming her back against Rey’s bedroom door after she closed it behind her. Her chest was heaving from her stressed breaths, her eyes alight with excitement. 

It was mid-May and the girls were studying constantly to prepare for their final exams. It was not fun at all, but at least they got to do it together. 

Rey couldn’t wait for summer. It was so close, yet still so far away. 

“Found what?” Rose asked curiously, pulling herself off of her belly on Rey’s floor, her attention lifting from her open Biology book. 

Rey took a moment to extend her arms with a yawn, arching her back in a stretch. She and Rose had been studying for an hour or so. They figured Kaydel had probably ditched them after-school for a heated make-out session in Poe’s car. 

They were living vicariously through Kaydel and Poe’s growing relationship. Kay was ready to bring things to another level after they had dry-humped on his parents’ couch and he got her off by fingering her over her panties (a _real_ orgasm this time, Rey deduced by her description of it). But Poe still insisted he wanted to take things a little slower. 

“If he doesn’t put his fingers in me soon, I’m going to _explode!_ ” Kaydel had exclaimed, exasperatedly flopping to the floor, the three of them in the Solo's refinished basement on a night when Ben wasn’t home.

Ben had come back later that night, scaring the hell out of her and Kaydel as they played with a Ouija board in the candlelit basement. Loudly, he clamored in through the basement window, drunk as a skunk after a party in the woods. He smelled like bonfire and beer and insisted he didn’t drive when they lectured him about it in hushed whispers in the Solo’s kitchen, as he sloppily stuffed Cheetos into his mouth and slammed back a Ginger ale. 

“Something’s going on with him,” Kaydel whispered suspiciously when they blew out the candles after he had fallen asleep—face down on the couch behind them, snoring loudly.

Rey thought he had actually been kind of funny, gleefully sitting on the floor with them, awkwardly folded up, pretending to be the ghost of Elvis with a message for them. He was certainly more silly than she had seen him be in a long time. 

“He’s hiding something, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

The word that Ben and Rey were suddenly going out, spread like wildfire across the school. She neither confirmed nor denied the gossip, simply happy that Snap kept his stupid mouth shut and his attention focused elsewhere. 

As for the... _moment_ that had happened between them… well, Ben seemed like he had forgotten all about it, so she forced herself to believe that he had just done her a favor. 

An act of protective solidarity for his sister's friend. Nothing more. Not that, that stopped a highly detailed and elicit description of it in her journal. Or the even _more_ highly detailed and explicitly described piece of fiction she wrote that involved Ben’s hands sliding down from her waist in a secluded hallway of the school.

Confirmation of her overactive imagination came when she tried to bring up the rumors with Kaydel and she flippantly smiled like it was old news.

"Oh, I already talked to Ben about that," she said with a dismissive little wave—like it wasn't the singularly most mind-blowing moment of Rey’s life thus far. Like she was talking about an already completed homework assignment. 

Rey’s heart dropped as Kaydel's current wolfish grin crash-landed her back into the present. She watched as Kay moved forward, practically diving to the floor beside them, slapping down a moleskin notebook. 

“Ben’s diary.”

Rey jolted from the shock, a clench of anxiety gripping at her stomach.

“We can’t read that!” she said quickly, eyes wide, looking down at the thing like it was a bomb full of paper and ink-scratched secrets. “Y-you can’t read someone else’s journal, Kay. It’s a horrible invasion of-of privacy! Of _trust_.”

“I knew you would say that,” Kaydel rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “Look, how else am I supposed to find out what Ben is keeping from me? What if he’s being driven _mad_ by some lust-filled crush? He’s hopeless. He’ll need my help!” She shook her head a little in a self-convincing frown. “I’m just being a good sister.”

“He likes Paige, we already know that,” Rey argued, shaking her head, still eyeing the book. “They’re going to prom together.”

She had pretended that the news hadn’t bothered her. Like it didn’t carve their initials into her heart, thinking about how handsome he would look in his suit and how beautiful Paige would look beside him. Their arms linked, smiling.

“Yeah, but as friends,” Rose said, reaching forward to pick up the notebook, eyeing it with a hint of wonder. “He doesn’t come over to our house anymore. Probably can’t stand the holes my dad’s eyes burn into him. He and Paige talk on a secret cell phone no one is supposed to know she has. But she definitely has a boyfriend now, and it’s _definitely_ not Ben.” Her eyes raised to the two of them as she passed Kaydel the journal, interest piqued. “I wonder if he wrote about it in there?”

“See?” Kay argued, gaining conviction as she fanned through the pages quickly with her thumb. Rey’s stomach was knotting nervously. “And, if he didn’t want me to read it, why did he just leave it lying around?”

“Where did he leave it?” Rey asked softly, looking at it held between Kaydel’s thin fingers, the tips painted robin’s-egg blue. 

“In the back of his closet, wedged under some clothes,” Kay said, casually. “He’s practically _begging_ me to find out who his crush is and make it happen!” She turned to Rey. “I’m like a modern-day cupid. A matchmaker,” she said with a grin as she wiggled her shoulders and eyebrows. 

Rey didn’t want to know who Ben had secret feelings for. The reality of it not being her would be rib-crunching.

But it looked like she was going to find out anyway.

Kaydel scrambled through the pages, about 30 or so actually written in, skimming them rapidly, and murmuring to herself. “It’s a fresh one.” Her eyes zipped back and forth across the handwritten lines. “Ugh, he’s so boring! What’s the matter with him! Where’s all the juice? The good thirsty stuff?” She flipped through more pages with a shake of her head.

Rey tried to go back to her biology textbook as she forced herself to push and pull air steadily in and out of her lungs. She had to remain calm.

“Oh my God! This is it!” Kaydel squealed, coming up on her knees, excitedly. “Okay okay okay!” she took a deep breath.

“ _Every day it gets harder and harder to keep my feelings for her in check_ ,” her mouth made a little “aww” mimic before she continued. Rey’s stomach felt like rocks in a washing machine. “ _She is just so breathtaking. The way she smiles at me, the way her eyes look at me_ _—_ _as if she holds the answers to all of the questions in my life that will complete me_ ,” pausing again, she pressed the book to her chest. “Aww, Ben, what a sweet little romantic you are, lost in that sasquatch body _._ ” 

Rey’s entire body thudded with her heartbeat. This was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. The suspense made her skin feel tight and nervous as she leaned forward, now enthralled.

What if he revealed that this whole time he was secretly in love with her? What would she do? Would she stand up and run over to the Solo’s? Barge right in and sprint down to his room. Leap into his arms and kiss his stunned lips as she confessed “Me too, Ben. I feel it too!”

Kaydel continued, “ _It breaks my heart that she can never know how I truly feel about her. That I can never reveal the love I have for her and how it drives me crazy not to have her. People just wouldn’t understand. They would think it was weird—that I was a freak. But I’m not. I know that what I feel is real and genuine. That she is my one true soulmate, who I can never have fully, who I have to watch from afar_.” 

The tension in the room was so high, if someone had coughed within a mile radius, both Rey and Rose would have had to pluck their fingers out of the ceiling. 

“ _A love story like ours can truly have no happy ending. The world does not accept that a man could possibly be in love with his own sister_ …” Kaydel paused, her brow furrowed. 

“What the fuck,” all three of them whispered, stunned. 

Kaydel was white as a sheet, looking like she might puke. Rey thought she might too, her heart pounding in her throat.

“ _B-but, what they don’t know is that we’re not even really_ related?” Kaydel’s voice squealed in hysteria. Her wide eyes looked up in horror. “Guys, my pervo brother is in love with me and I’m adopted too? What the fuck!”

“Keep reading!” Rose encouraged as they leaned forward more, hanging on her every word. 

Kay’s breath was falling heavy in panicked gasps for air, she nodded and swallowed. 

“ _My parents found Kaydel one afternoon when we went to visit the zoo. She was left alone by a tree, completely abandoned. When mom picked her up she clung to her sadly, screeching and chattering in a language we did not recognize. We tried to leave, but the people at the zoo tried to stop us. Mom and dad yelled and Kaydel cried. ‘She is zoo property!’ one of the guards said. ‘You have to put her back in the monkey exhibit, where she belongs’_ …” 

The silence stretched for a moment or two before Kaydel whipped the book to the carpet. 

“Goddamnit it, Ben!” she cursed, while Rey and Rose fell to the floor clutching their stomachs with laughter. 

Honestly, they should have known better. It served them right. 

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


By June, the end of the school year was in reach and Rey’s skin started to hum with excitement when she thought about the heat of the summer sun and the cool water of the pool.

The talent show was on a Friday night, and the auditorium murmured with excitement as parents and students gathered in their seats, the cool air of the theater causing a sigh of relief when coming in from the humid air from outside. 

Kaydel had gone in early with the band, securing them front row seats. She waved wildly to Rey, giddy with excitement for the show.

It was a little cruel to say it, but there wasn’t a lot of talent at Crait High School. 

Rey nearly fell asleep during Dopheld Mitaka’s piano concerto which seemed to take up a quarter of the first half. Dash Dene did a stand-up routine that was kind of funny, and she laughed at jokes she really didn’t get just to make him feel better since he was dripping with sweat in the stage lights. Some senior girls did a poorly lip-synched and choreographed dance to a Destiny’s Child song (even though there were 8 of them) and Kandri Corrik sang that song from Titanic. Rey thought she did really well, although Kaydel rolled her eyes when she clapped unenthusiastically at the end.

The First Alliance (a band name picked out by Poe with little protest or care from the other members) was playing their two-song set right before the intermission break. Rey felt a nervous thrill run through her as Kandri took her bow before the curtain and then introduced them before walking off stage as the curtain opened.

The lights to the stage were still off as Phas’ deep bass boomed seductively through the air and Kaydel scoffed, folding her arms. 

“I can’t believe she got to introduce them,” she pouted, nastily. Her attitude lifted instantly as Poe’s voice rang out before he popped into the bright shine of the stage light. Her frown bled upward into a proud smile. 

“Ugh, he’s so hot,” she whispered, her eyes shining hungrily for her boyfriend, who stood center stage as the lights slowly rose on the other members behind him. 

Poe was a natural on stage. They all were, actually. Not a single member looked nervous at all and Rey thought she would be a wreck if she had the entire school staring at her while she tried to play a bloody instrument.

Ben looked completely unaffected. Effortless, bored even. And why was that so… hot? 

She watched in fascination as his fingers slid up and down the neck of his guitar deftly, pulling all kinds of sounds from the instrument. Pausing to push in and bend the string with a controlled wiggle, as his face remained focused, but not strained. With each small shimmy to the guitar to stretch the note, Rey felt the blotchy, heated blush she was experiencing creep further and further up her neck. Her body tingled, remembering the press of his fingers on her hip, her waist.

Thank God it was dark in the audience.

The song picked up and so did everyone’s movements. Armie tapped the symbols a few times before the drums exploded, his arms moving furiously over the set, in precise, expert movements, sticks blurred. Ben’s guitar sang out above the fray, backing Poe’s voice. Again, she watched his fingers move in flawless and controlled quick moments. She was beginning to sweat a little in her seat, while he managed to look perfectly calm and in control from his position on stage.

Sure that her mouth was hanging open in a thirsty gap, she snapped it shut when the song finally came to an end. 

“Fuck that was so hot!” Kaydel gasped, clutching at the armrests of her seat. Poe combed his hair back and sent her a flirtatious wink. Rey was glad Kay was distracted, and didn’t notice that Rey was _also_ ready to crawl out of her own skin. 

She had never been more jealous of an inanimate object as she was of Ben’s guitar. 

On stage he tossed his hair back with a shake of his head, that gorgeous aquiline profile lighting up her insides. He looked amazing. Perfectly aloof, muscled pale arms bare and illuminated in the stage lights. Broad chest straining beneath a black t-shirt and his guitar strap. His strong fingers raised back up to the neck of the guitar, thumbing a strum or two to the strings, while Poe spoke. 

“This next one is an original. It's called _Summer’s Song_.” 

She should have given her attention to Poe, but she kept her eyes on Ben instead, enjoying the display too much to look away.

She could watch him here, freely, openly. No one would know. No one would realize that she couldn’t pull her eyes away from him. Didn’t want to.

The cords in his neck strained a little with a rough swallow, his jaw tightening. Suddenly, his eyes raised and met hers. Intense, clashing. It physically jolted her, and he looked away quickly, his gaze dropping to the stage floor, his jaw working, hair falling into his eyes. 

Wow. Rey was… really, _really_ worked up. She needed to calm down, she joked with herself. 

Ben strummed the opening notes gently, and nodded in accompanied time with Poe’s melodic voice echoing through the space as it bumped and floated off the walls. 

She smiled. She instantly liked it.

A story about a boy with a secret. One that was tearing him apart. So much heart and too much brain, getting in his way. His tongue was tied and his feelings remained hidden.

Kaydel looked like she was all but melting into a human love-puddle, as she watched Poe croon it to her, their eyes locked. For a moment, Rey imagined it must be terribly flattering to have someone write a song about you. 

And then she heard it:

_Dancing with her beneath the stars,_

_A secret kept between us and Mars,_

Rey’s heart skittered in its beating, effervescent bubbles rising and tickling up the back of her neck. 

_Simple steps, all stops, and starts,_

_Shared between our two beating hearts_

Her limbs were numb. No, cold— _tingling._

It… it couldn’t be. 

No. She could almost laugh at herself. Her crush had finally reached delusional levels.

Ben gave his guitar a powerful shake downwards toward the floor with a stomp as it wailed with a tempo change, sounding like a scream of angst and heartache, Poe’s reverberated voice rising to sing the chorus of a boy being ripped to shreds by his own conflicted feelings.

It was a little hard to breathe, despite her mouth hanging open. 

This song was about Paige, surely. 

His eyes raised to hers again as the song mellowed out. He stood tall, facing the audience head-on, strumming the simple opening chords again, his shoulders set, his own mouth open a little, a gentle tremble in his lip. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep, stuttering sigh that he swallowed roughly at the end. His eyes. His eyes looked at her like he was _sorry_. Like he was apologizing to her in a silent look shared between them.

When the audience rose to applaud them, she remained seated, her legs hollow, her eyes still locked to Ben’s. 

“Rey!” Kaydel said, grabbing her shoulder with a little shake. Rey jumped, eyes ripping from Ben’s to look up at her friend confusedly. “Stand up, we’re in the front row!” Rey looked back to the stage and Ben was already gone. 

Shakily, she got to her feet, knees feeling like gelatin, to join in with the thunderous applause.

  
  
  


***

  
  


Ben got offstage and promptly pushed through the backstage doors, dry-heaving over the grass with his hands on his knees. Paige burst through the doors after him, concerned. 

“Jesus, Ben!” she gasped, her hands making circles over his back as he heaved again. 

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” he strained, with a spit to the ground, before taking a deep breath to calm his stupid twisting guts. 

_She knew_. She looked right at him and _she knew._ Fuck. He felt like he could cry. 

He stood, sucking in another deep inhale. “Just stage nerves,” he mumbled dismissively. 

Poe shoved open the stage doors, finger pointed in the air.

“Do you hear that?!” he bellowed excitedly to the applause still ringing in the theatre. He gave Ben a few excited slaps to the chest. “I could fucking _live_ off that sound!” he shouted into the night sky. 

Ben let out a little laugh at his enthusiasm. 

Armie leaned out of the stage door with a huge grin. 

“Afterparty at Corrik’s tonight already in the works. You guys down?”

Paige rolled her eyes. “You already know I’m out,” her parents and Rose were in the audience. 

Nothing sounded better to Ben right now than calming his voltaic nerves with beer pong, weed, and getting the fuck away from here. 

Bonus—parties at Corrik’s were great because they lived close enough where he could stumble home and slip in through his basement window easily without a lecture from his parents. 

“I’m game.”

Poe’s brow was knitted concernedly. He gave Ben a sideways glance.

“Kay will kill me.”

Ben snorted. “Man, you jumped into that grave all on your own.”

“But if I’m with _you_ , it’s like I have a chaperone,” Poe said, on a higher note. 

“It’s your second funeral.”

“So should I text my beer contact or no?” Armie asked, eyes moving between the three of them. 

Poe grinned, giving his finger a little turn in the air. “Call him up! We’re celebrating!”

  
  


***

“I’m going to _kill_ him!” Kaydel screamed, pacing back and forth in the grass in front of the school. She hit Poe’s contact on her phone once more and it rang several times before going to voicemail again. 

They had waited after the end of the show for the guys to come out, only to have Paige come out alone.

“They went to the afterparty at Corrik's. They left at intermission.”

Rey was slightly relieved, Kaydel was fuming. Her face was the reddest Rey had ever seen it, her body visually vibrating. 

“I’m going to that fucking party,” she hissed angrily beside Rey in the grass, as they waited for Mrs. Solo to pick them up.

Rey was sleeping over at Kaydel’s that night and despite what had gone so horribly wrong the last time they decided to attend an impromptu party, Rey was also a little curious to see what actually happened at one of the Corrik’s infamous parties. 

Denon Corrick was a senior, and his sister, Kandri was in their grade and a long-running personal rival of Kaydel’s—although, Rey had never seen any evidence from Kandri that she actually knew that fact. 

When they got back to the Solo’s, they went straight to Kaydel’s room. She rummaged through a hidden selection of clothes she had squirreled away in a hot pink plastic shopping bag in the back of her closet. She held up a grey skirt and top against Rey before shoving it back into the bag. 

“We’ll sneak out of the basement window and change outside when my mom goes to sleep.”

Thankfully, Mrs. Solo kept a pretty regular schedule, and despite it being a weekend night, she was fighting to keep her eyelids open by 10:30. She bid the girls goodnight halfway through the movie they started together, shuffling upstairs with a stifled yawn. 

Rey and Kaydel waited about 5 minutes before springing up off the couch and hurrying down the steps to the basement. There, they did each other's make up in record speed, before shoving a chair against the wall and climbing out into the night air as quietly as possible. 

As Rey shucked off her pajama top, her skin hitting the summer air standing in the Solo’s side yard in just her bra and underwear, she looked up to her own dark house. 

The blue tv light in the living room told her Cassian and Jyn were still awake, probably watching a movie. A tinge of guilt hit her, but before she could really let it sucker her into slipping back through the window, Kaydel tossed her the outfit from earlier. 

Rey slid into it, and it was _tight._ The skirt landing higher up her thigh than any other garment ever had. She tugged at it, but the waistline was purposely cut high and didn’t budge. 

“Where did you get these clothes?” Rey whispered. She was still wearing her white sneakers and she hoped it looked at least passable for an outfit.

Kaydel pulled a sheer, long sleeve black shirt over her black strapless bra. She tucked it into her even-shorter-than-Rey’s skirt and fluffed her hair. 

“Forever 21,” she stepped forward and adjusted Rey’s shirt, also black, but midriff-baring, with long sleeves, the chest exposed with the exception of a strip of material that ran up the center to wrap around her neck like a choker. “You look _hot!_ ” she said with a hiss and a grin. 

Rey felt like her nerves were making her vibrate as they moved through the night, quietly hurrying down the street, trying their best to avoid the streetlights. 

The Corrik’s house was just a few streets over, at the top of their neighborhood. Cars lined the street, and despite having never been there before, it wasn’t hard to figure out which house was theirs. It was the biggest and the loudest, sitting solitary on the dark hill.

Kaydel brought a pair of strappy black heels with her, which dangled from her hand as she hurriedly walked in her sneakers. Once they got to the front of the Corrik’s she stashed the sneakers in the bushes, hanging onto Rey’s arm for support as she fastened the straps around her ankles. 

Setting her face in a determined glare, Kaydel nodded and whispered. “Let’s go.”

Rey had never been to a party before. Not like this. 

The entire house was _alive_. Vibrating. The energy was palpable, _young_ , electric. 

They entered through the front door, where everyone was dancing. A guy with turntables and booming speakers was leading the crowd with a hip-hop thumping baseline, blending one song seamlessly into another as people held their cups in the air, grinding on one another. 

She recognized some people, but she was surprised how many people were here she didn’t know. 

The room shook every time the song changed, howls and whoops of excitement fueling the vivacity of the house.

Kaydel said something but it was swallowed up by another howl from the crowd.

“Huh?” Rey shouted back.

“I. Don’t. See. Them!” she punctuated. “I’m going to look for Poe!”

“Rey!” she heard shouted over the music. 

She turned to face Finn, a red cup in his hand, grinning ear to ear. He stopped short before her, propping his fist under his chin, giving her the once over. 

“Girl… whew!” he shook out his hand like he had burnt it. 

Rey laughed and swatted at his arm. “Oh stop.”

“Nah, you look _gooood!_ ” his eyes shot up to look behind her hopefully. “Is Rose with you?”

Rey shook her head and his shoulders fell. 

“Wishful thinking, I suppose,” he said with a sigh. “You want a drink?”

It occurred to Rey that they had just rolled into a house party completely and totally empty-handed. 

“No, I’m good for now,” she said, feeling like an idiot.

“I have a bottle of vodka stashed in a houseplant,” he gave her a conspiring wink. “You let me know when you’re ready. In the meantime,” he lifted his arms up, doing a fancy heel and toe-dance step. “Wanna dance?”

Finn was an incredible dancer. Light on his feet, amazingly smooth, with dance moves that were worthy of envy. And he was FUN to dance with! Rey couldn’t keep the grin off her face as they naturally flowed with each other, goofing, and vibing off each other's moves.

She wasn’t even sure how long they were out there, but eventually, he cursed, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, the alarm sounding. 

“Shit,” he frowned. “I gotta go, I have a midnight curfew.” Jumping forward, he grabbed her shoulders and gave her a sweaty, quick kiss to her cheek. “This was awesome. Hey, the vodka is all yours. It’s garbage, but it’s free,” he turned and walked backward. “In the plant by the sliding door in the kitchen. Have fun, be safe!” He blew a quick kiss before turning and bounding out the front door. 

Midnight. Shit. She supposed she better track down Kaydel and see what the plan was. 

She moved through the packed house, ducking a stray elbow here, an errant over-exaggerated sloppy gesture there. Arriving at the entryway to the kitchen, her eyes swept the room looking for Kaydel or Poe. 

They landed on Ben, leaning against the kitchen counter, surrounded by a slew of other people—Phas, who was chatting with a shorter guy she recognized from the basketball team. A brunette girl Rey kind of recognized, but couldn’t fully place, was crammed within the group, laughing at what her friend was saying, but with her attention clearly focused on Ben, perched across from her. Kandri Corrik was shoved between Ben’s side and the kitchen counter, her body turned his way, although she was having a conversation with another girl who was standing across from her. Deep in a discussion with one of his track teammates, Ben seemed oblivious to the human door wedge thrust against his back and the intense stare of his other admirer.

It would be almost comical if it weren’t for the rip of jealousy that flashed through Rey. 

Across the room, she watched as Ben laughed, bringing a plastic cup up to his face, his eyes moving away from the conversation, casually floating around the kitchen. 

They landed on her ankles. 

She could almost _feel_ them as they moved up her shins, to her knees, the patch of skin on her thighs below the hem of her skirt. Rising higher to the thin strip of her stomach exposed between the skirt and shirt, as the lip of his cup broke away from his mouth. Right breast, left breast, collarbone. 

She knew it all happened in a fraction of a moment, but it seemed to move at the rate of eternity, as his eyes dragged up her body, like he was discovering it for the first time.

They landed on her face, his cup now fully away from his own. He was looking at her in a way he never had before. Openly hungry. Like she was grown. No longer Kaydel’s friend, _Stringbean_ , or his kid neighbor. It set her entire body ablaze—wanting to preen out and curl in at the same time. Insanely arousing and invasive, stripping her down to nothing in a very public place for the second time in one night. 

Then, _recognition_. 

A gentle flex in his brow first. Followed by the slight exposure of the whites of his eyes, before he closed them entirely with a heavy sigh and, she was pretty was the word “fuck” puttering out of his lips.

“No _fucking_ waaaay!” she heard and looked over to see Armitage laughing happily, pointing her way. He danced to her with his drink in his hand, sloshing it a little bit. “‘bean!” Laughing again, he wrapped a friendly, sloppy arm around her shoulders and gave her a little jostle. 

“Ben! Ben, look who—”

“Yeah, I know,” Ben snapped, the tension in his jaw obvious as he approached her. His eyes skirted down over her again, much faster than the last time, then quickly darted away. “Where’s Kay?”

“I don’t know. She’s—”

“Heeeyyy!” Armitage said, dropping his arm from Rey’s shoulder as he turned in an obvious way that told her that Kaydel was right behind her now.

“Oh God,” Ben moaned, slapping his hands over his face with a slight stumble backward. “Why would you do this to me?” He mumbled through his palms. 

Kaydel rolled her eyes as she stepped up next to Rey, tucking her face into a red cup with a grin, her other arm extended back, holding Poe’s hand. Apparently, all was well again on that front. 

“If Mom and Dad find out that I was here, I’ll be grounded. If they found out _you and I_ were here, it will be my funeral. You understand that right?” Ben ground out, dropping his hands from his face. Again, his eyes darted to Rey, or more so, the exposed sections of her shirt. “And what the _fuck_ are you guys wearing? This isn’t a nightclub.”

Poe laughed humorously, draping his arms over Kaydel’s shoulders with a playful kiss to her cheek. 

“I think they look great.”

“Yeah well you’re not the one who can see your sister's bra right now so...” he said flatly, taking a slug from his plastic cup. 

“Relax, Solo,” Armie, chided. Once again, he slung an arm around Rey’s shoulders. “The girls are here, we’re having fun. Shit, it’s like the official beginning of summer! Let’s cheers. No more frowny faces. Smiles only.” He held his cup in the air. Poe and Kaydel held up their cups too, but Rey was empty-handed.

“Unacceptable!” Armie, trumpeted, shouting away from her into the crowd. “My friend Rey needs a drink!”

Rey laughed a little, shaking her head. 

“Hold on,” she said, ducking out from under Armie’s grip, and scurrying over to the houseplant Finn had told her about. Sure enough, there was a pint of vodka with just a bit missing from it. She brought it back and placed it on the kitchen island. 

“Get with it, Solo, the lady needs a cup and some ice, Jesus,” Armie chaffed, looking down at her with a little teasing eye roll. Ben shot him a pointed look, before turning and wading his way through the group he had once been in conversation with, to a massive blue cooler that sat on the kitchen counter. 

Rey watched as Kandri’s eyes followed him the entire time from over the rim of her drink. 

Ben returned with a cup for her, nearly filled with ice, and some kind of juice blend. He picked up the vodka bottle and poured some into her glass. 

“My sister looks like a baby hooker,” he said, passing her the drink, before grabbing a shot glass resting on the counter she thought had zero probability of being clean, and filling it. “And I’m a personal bartender for her best friend who is underage.” He lifted the shot. “Awesome,” he smiled tightly. 

“We’re all underage, dipstick,” she said softly, with no venom. 

Rey’s eyes shifted to Kandri again quickly, and she was scowling directly at Rey. 

Ben took his shot before anyone else could raise their glass. “Fuck it,” he poured another one and held it up.

“To summer,” he grumbled, looking down at her, his smile slightly more humored now. 

“To summer,” she murmured back, lost amidst the rest of her friends' voices. 

***

Rey didn’t really care for drinking. The juice Ben had poured into her drink was tasty, but the vodka was just _awful_. Her, Armie, and Kaydel had moved to the dance floor, and eventually, all the ice in her drink melted as she nursed it gently. Eventually, she abandoned it on a table somewhere, not all that sad she had lost track of it.

It turned out that Armitage was a blast when he was a bit of a hot mess. He killed it with the dance moves and the song lyrics with her and Kaydel, not giving a fuck who was watching. Her face hurt from laughing as he rapped along with some of the hardest lyrics. She was pretty sure he knew every rap song they played. 

Eventually, his eyes wandered above Rey’s shoulder, to a pretty blonde, singing lyrics with her friends, who kept giving him coy smiles between verses. 

Rey dipped out of the way, giving him an impressed eyebrow raise and she jokingly danced to the side with a shift of her thumbs towards the direction she was moving. 

That produced an amazing heartfelt laugh from him as he shook his head, dancing his way up to the blonde with a smile.

She and Kay continued dancing for a little bit longer before Kaydel sighed sadly.

“I wish Rose could be here,” she said, grabbing Rey’s arm holding it up so she could dance under it.

“Me too!” Rey shouted. 

Eventually, they moved from the living room/make-shift dance floor, looking for the boys again. Armie was running his fingers through the blonde's hair, as she rubbed her hands up and down his arms, and they figured it best not to interrupt. 

They found the other two, in the basement in a haphazard semi-circle, sitting on the floor. 

The room was cloudy with smoke, the vibrations from the party upstairs loud, but a whole different, relaxed sort of vibe on the lower level. Off in the corner, some guy was strumming a guitar, and a girl with a high, pretty voice sang along. Everyone was chatting quietly, engrossed in different conversations in various spots around the room.

Once again, Kandri was sitting too close to Ben for Rey’s comfort, as he sat, his back against the cellar wall, arms resting on raised knees, a joint held loosely between his middle and forefinger like a cigarette. 

“Stop bogarting the J, Solo,” Poe chastised, lifting his face to smile lazily up at Kaydel as she dropped next to him, nudging Kandri gently out of the way, and much to Rey’s dismay, closer to Ben. 

Ben raised his head a little, looking up at Rey, and passing the rolled paper to the left without looking. Kandri took it, her eyes darting from Ben to Rey, and back. 

Rey lowered herself beside Ben on the floor gently, with a respectable distance between them, tucking her skirt under her bottom tentatively. 

Ben shifted slightly, his attention moving from her to follow whoever was leading the conversation around the circle. 

“I can’t feel my legs,” Kaydel giggled almost immediately after taking a drag of the weed, in between a sputtering of coughs. 

Eventually, the twisted and half-smoked thing was passed to Rey and she pinched it between her fingertips, not entirely sure what to do next.

“Have you ever smoked before?” Ben asked, watching her from his post against the wall. 

She would have lied if it were anyone else. She gave him a tight head shake. Kandri gave an amused snort, but Rey chose to ignore her. So did Ben.

His amber eyes rolled over her and he gave her a small smile, leaning forward off the wall. His fingers curled in a gesture, ushering her to hand the joint over to him. She did. 

“C’ mere,” he murmured, repositioning himself as he crossed his legs. His eyes were different, heavier, sleepier. Less focused, less _Ben_. But… not exactly in a bad way, just one she’d never seen before. His whole body was looser, far slacker than normal. Unwound, for once.

She hesitated then leaned closer, her shoulders moving in towards him.

He made a face of endearing amusement. “Closer,” he whispered like there’d been a joke between them and he was just about to tell her the punchline so no one else could hear. 

Fingers pushing into the carpet, she crawled forward a little. The fibers were rough as they pressed into the skin of her knees, feeling more like little shards of glass as her weight shifted forward to lean over him slightly. Her face was alarmingly close to his, closer than it had ever been before. She could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, his pupils tight, lids hooded.

Ben turned his face slightly, eyes locked on hers as he took a hit of the joint. Holding it in for a moment, his eyes moved over her face and she felt his fingers slide along the back of her neck, gently pulling her even closer. 

Rey had to swallow her heart.

His face was so close to hers, she could feel the heat from his skin. He let the smoke go, hypnotizing white mist floating out of his mouth, right below her own mouth, her nose.

Her nipples tightened into sharp, concentrated points—hyper-sensitive, and keening for his warmth.

Chuckling quietly but roughly, his fingers massaged little presses into the base of her scalp, sending a fluid shockwave rolling up her spine 

“You have to inhale,” he murmured, humored. 

Where were they again? She could only see his eyes. Only smell the smoke, his cologne, his laundry detergent, his _skin_. How was she supposed to inhale anything other than him when she couldn’t even _breathe?_

Rey thought she heard a huff and some kind of commotion beside them, but she didn’t care enough to look away from him.

“Sorry,” she said softly, eyes dancing over his face, trying to memorize everything this close up.

“Here,” he turned his face again, and his tongue ran over his lips before he took another drag from the joint. He held her in place still, before he turned back, his nose brushing against hers as he did.

He let the smoke roll from his mouth again, and this time she sucked it in slowly, quietly—her eyes fixed on his. 

“Hold it,” his voice was so, so quiet. His fingers pulsed in her hair: minuscule movements of flex, release, flex, release, flex, release—making her entire body pulse with them. Gentle pressure at the back of her skull like a heartbeat. Given the micromovement of a nod from him, she exhaled.

He shifted his head back a little, an odd smile at the corner of his mouth, tongue once again dragging across his lips. 

She wanted him to tug on the back of her head and kiss her. Plunge that tongue in her mouth and she didn’t care about anything else. Who saw it, what it would mean tomorrow, or if it meant anything ever again. She just wanted it. 

Wanted to crawl in his lap and suck praises and gasps straight from him. 

Her own filthy mind made her face roar in a blush. 

Fingers slipped from her hair, only to drift over her face, his index finger dragging heavily across her cheek slowly. 

“Freckles,” he murmured. “Like a galaxy of beauty spread across your face.” His forehead furrowed briefly. “Your eyes are incredible,” with an awed sigh, his fingers drifted up to grace her eyebrow, tracing it down to the corner of her eye. He nodded a little. “You have a perfect face. So, so pretty.”

This was not the Ben Solo she knew, no matter how badly she wanted it to be. No matter how much she wished she could just push her mouth to his and hope for the best, she knew something about it wasn’t right. 

“Ben,” she said quietly, swallowing a little. “I think you’re fucked up.”

His grin widened as he sank back against the wall, his head gently thumping against it. A broken little chuckle slipped from his lips as his eyes slid closed.

“I am _so_ fucked up, sweetheart.” 

  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Ben had to be the heaviest man alive. 

Rey squeaked as they all stumbled forward a little, Ben's drunken weight-shift pulling them as they tripped over the asphalt before stabling out again.

She had no idea what time it was and this journey back to the Solo’s seemed to be endless. 

Her body was still feeling a little fuzzy, staticky from the pot, but overall, she was just _tired_. 

Armitage, who was just as shitfaced as Ben, staggered more steadily, taking the brunt of Ben’s weight. The two of them pressed together with arms slung over each other's shoulders. The group of them were all wrapped limbs of support, like a roving human, suspension bridge. Rey had her arm around Ben's waist to attempt to guide him in a semi-straight line, his heavy arm weighing over her neck, her hand clutching his wrist like some kind of useless oar on a giant, clumsy boat.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they turned onto their street.

"Dude," Armie let out a burp and Kaydel groaned beside him in disgust. "Sorry," he muttered. "Dude," he began again. "I think tonight was probably one of my favorite nights of all time. Fucking amazing. I love you guys. You're fucking great," he hiccuped and burped again.

"If you barf on me Armie, so help me God…" Kaydel warned.

Like an awkward, staggering 8-legged monstrosity, they made their way onto the Solo’s porch, Kaydel and Rey doing their best to keep the boys steady and quiet on the wooden floorboards. Armie collapsed onto the porch swing roughly, making far too much noise.

"Jesus Christ," Kay hissed, frustrated. Whatever buzz she may have had earlier was certainly gone now. Poe had chosen to walk home instead of coming home with them, and she was clearly feeling a sort of way about it. "We've made it this far, we don't need my mom to catch us now!"

Rey was still holding Ben around the waist, her other hand planted over his chest like a brace. He pressed a hand to the doorframe to better steady himself. 

"I'm going in through the window, you sure you got them?" Kaydel asked.

Rey nodded, glancing to Ben who had his eyes closed, head bowed. If he tipped over now, they were all fucked.

"Yeah, I'm good." 

Kaydel disappeared down the steps and into the dark yard.

An owl hooted off in the distance somewhere and Armie's shallow snores sounded from the bench of the swing. 

She thought Ben might have fallen asleep too, until his hand, which had been resting on her lower back, lifted up and landed on the crown of her head. 

"I'm sorry Rey," he said quietly, his hand smoothing over her hair in a pet.

Rey frowned a little, looking up at him. He had that regular-Ben touch of sorrow in his eyes. It pinched her heart.

"For what?" she breathed. 

His eyes flashed back and forth between hers as they grew glassy. 

"I shouldn't have even written it."

_The song. Holy fuck, he was talking about the song!_

Rey’s mouth went dry as her heart pounded frantically against the cage of her chest. She could feel her own eyes beginning to grow wet.

He _had_ written it about her. 

"I loved it," she said softly. "It was beautiful."

He hummed softly, happily. 

And then he pressed his mouth to her temple, his nose nuzzling into her hair for a moment. Her body _sang_ —alive, glowing, and humming with light. He kissed her at the temple again. 

Rey's fingers gripped at the fabric of his t-shirt and Ben let out a quiet moan. Her breath was uneven, erratic as she fought to not float from the porch entirely.

"Ben," she swallowed. Kaydel would be back any second now, and Armie snored softly behind them. Ben was _drunk._ This was not the time for heartfelt confessions, her brain screamed. 

"Ben, I—"

"Love you..." Ben mumbled into her hair and Rey's heart erupted in her chest, an internal firestorm flashing through her core, her limbs, her fingers, her _toes_.

"...but, like… my sister… I don't—I don’t want you to think—you... there's a lot. I don’t know how—"

Kaydel opened the door before them, dressed in her pajamas again. Rey had to swallow down the lump that had lodged itself high in her throat, while she blinked away the tears.

"You okay?" Kaydel whispered, and Rey nodded dismissively, moving forward, guiding Ben into the house. 

"Rey," he muttered softly again and she shushed him. 

"I think we've talked enough for tonight," she said tightly.

He let out a deep, sad sigh. "Okay..."

They made it down the stairs safely, and Rey deposited Ben into his bed, where he dropped like an exhausted sack of muscle and bone. His momentum causing her to fall over him, her feet leaving the floor entirely. He grunted and she scurried back from him quickly. 

Through the open doorway, she heard Kaydel curse as Armie rumbled something, landing on the couch. "Shit," Kaydel hissed, then paused. "My mom! Rey, keep the idiots quiet!" 

Rey heard her footfalls as she bolted up the stairs, leaving Rey in the quiet basement. Armie’s soft snoring picked up again as she held her breath, listening to the muffled voices above her, in the kitchen.

With a sigh, she turned, and Ben caught her hand.

"Don't be mad," he begged miserably. "Please."

He was laid out across his bed, on his stomach in the dark, the contrast between his skin, dark hair, and clothing, barely visible. 

His thumb grazed the back of her hand and again, she felt the pressure of tears bearing down on her features.

"...don't like it when you're mad at me," he mumbled into his pillow. 

She gave his hand a soft squeeze in return as a tear escaped and darted down her cheek. She brushed it away quickly with a rough swipe to her face.

Kaydel came back down with a sigh.

"They owe me big time."

Ben's thumb continued to swipe a lazy caress to the back of her hand. 

"What did you tell her?" Rey whispered nervously.

"That Ben got home before midnight and we fell asleep down here after playing video games," she came into Ben's room, with a bundle in her hand. "Here's your pj’s. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for bed."

Rey glanced back at Ben, her hand, held in his. His thumb now motionless as his back rose and fell with sleep. 

He loved her like a sister. It made her chest _ache_ in a way she had never felt before. 

She slipped her hand from his, placing his gently on the bed. 

  
  


***

  
  


Ben had never been stabbed in the head before. Never had his temples squeezed in a vice either, but when he woke up in the morning and promptly deposited every possible liquid substance within his body into the toilet, he imagined both of those descriptions accurately fit his current state. 

When he came back downstairs, Armie groaned at him from behind the back of the couch as he pulled himself upright.

"Please bring me to a drive-through for some grease before I die," he cried into his open hands covering his face, his hair a spiked, coppery mess.

That sounded like an excellent plan, despite the concern he could actually keep it down. He went back to his room, swiping up his car keys. 

When they got to the top of the stairs, Ben paused at the sight of Kaydel and Rey at the stove, the smell of bacon and eggs in the air, the two of them still dressed in their pajamas. 

Kaydel pointed over her shoulder to the TV room, then held her finger up to her lips, signaling silently that his mother was in there, watching television, undoubtedly enjoying her second coffee of the morning.

Ben nodded, tiptoeing through the kitchen to the sliding door, he and Armie still dressed in their clothes from the night before. 

Rey kept her head lowered, her eyes fixed to the stovetop as they passed.

They slid out the back door, hurrying to jump into Ben's car undetected. He could explain how he managed to sleep in his outfit, it'd be harder to explain how Armitage had teleported himself into their home.

"Fuuuuck!" Armie yelled, rolling down the window and tipping his head back, once they made the turn off their street. "I feel like hot garbage!" In a jolt of panic, he checked his forearms and then relaxed when he saw a number still scrawled there in blue ink.

Ben desperately wished he had thought to grab his sunglasses.

"I met this gorgeous girl from Dagobah last night, man," Armie sighed looking out the window. "Love at first sight."

Ben's brain ziplined through the night, barreling through the talent show, Rey’s eyes in the audience. Her gorgeous face, so close to his as he breathed smoke into her mouth. How fucking delicious she looked in that outfit, he didn't want to look at it because it made him want to run his hands over every inch of her exposed skin.

A clench of fear seized his heart.

The porch. 

He told her he loved her on the porch. Oh, God. 

Panic and rejection tore through his insides, shredding through like sharp, pointed claws. 

He confessed he loved her in a bumbled, pathetic, drunk ramble, and she…

She said she didn't want to talk about it.

She had picked him up like the idiotic, inebriated, emotional toddler he was, and plunked him right down in the time-out friend zone, where he belonged. 

Because he was a fucking idiot, and it was right where he deserved to be. 

Ben pulled over, pushing open his car door to vomit once more on the side of the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sober transcript of Ben's ramble: "I love you, but like, my sister will be right back and I don't want you to think I'm just saying it, I mean it. It's a lot for me and I don't know how to handle it." 
> 
> [Your American Girl- Mitski](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_hDHm9MD0I)  
> Chapter Title and the basic tone of what I imagined "Summer's Song" would sound like
> 
> [Dazed and Confused- Led Zeppelin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rmtJ6-EY1E)  
> The band's first song (because I was born too late to have sex with Jimmy Page in his prime and I'm still sad about it)
> 
> [Guitar finger-porn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgZP7QlfqKI&t=33s)  
> If you're a freaky trash-bag like me and like fingers on strings
> 
> [Party playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYe64Azj1A)  
> In case you're in the mood to dance
> 
> [Apocalypse-Sex After Cigarettes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sElE_BfQ67s)  
> Shotgun sexiness


	7. When gravity pulls on us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy weekend friends! I hope you are all out there being safe and healthy.
> 
> [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) and [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) rock, per usual.

By mid-July, Ben began to wonder if Rey would ever speak to him directly again.

She didn’t ignore him or pretend that he was invisible or anything like that; she just became incredibly quiet whenever he came around. As if his presence instantly hit her internal mute button.

It made him self conscious, and therefore, silent in return. Their friends laughed and joked around them, and they just… existed. Wordlessly. Like two inaudible, uncomfortable dipshits.

Back in June, he spent the entire week after he had drunkenly stood on his porch and regurgitated his feelings into her hair, trying to leap out of the car to open the backseat door for her in the school lot each morning. She would open it each time before his hand could get to the handle. She’d pass him, head down, or turned away in conversation. 

He’d swallow down yet another silent apology. 

The week after that was prom, which was pretty much a miserable affair all on its own. 

He and Paige, Kaydel and Poe, Phas and her date (a guy from the basketball team who was several inches shorter than her), then Armie and his new girlfriend, Breyla, lined up for endless couples and group photos with everyone’s parents chattering excitedly before them. 

Paige wore an absolutely stunning candy-apple ballgown that seemed to shift with shiny blushes of pink and gold in the June sunlight. 

They gathered in the Tico’s backyard for pictures before dinner. Mr. Tico took great pride in his impressive self-made waterfall and koi pond, so all major photoshoots involving the Tico girls were usually set with it as the backdrop. 

Ben tried not to notice that Rey and Rose were off to the side in their regular clothes with that boy he had seen Rey walking with between classes. Finn  _ Something-or-other. _ Handsome, fascinatingly magnetic, easily likable. 

Ben hated him.

He seemed very relaxed around Rey. Too relaxed. It spiked an irritating barb of jealousy within Ben’s guts. 

He wanted to be relaxed around Rey. Wanted to give her an easy, perfectly aligned, brilliant white smile, and casually sling his arm around her shoulders like it was nothing. Instead he had to settle for crippling silence, crooked teeth, and a few sloppy, vodka-soaked kisses to the side of her head that made him cringe in remembrance. 

It turned out that prom was just like every other dance: too loud, too long, and annoying. The only major difference he could see was that it cost three times as much to attend. 

He and Paige danced a couple of times, but it was fairly transparent that her mind was elsewhere, as her eyes always seemed to be drifting to Phasma throughout the night.

“Why don’t you just ask her to dance?” Ben asked as they turned gently to some Ed Sheeran song.  _ It’s always an Ed Sheeran song _ , he thought dryly.

Paige’s wide eyes snapped up to him, alarmed.

“I can’t do that!” she hissed as if he had just suggested she take a leisurely bath in the punchbowl.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Who gives a fuck what these people think, Paige. After graduation, you won’t give a flying shit about any of them.”

She chewed her lip, looking off to the tables where Phas sat, appearing utterly miserable with no date in sight. Paige’s feet came to a halt. 

“You’re right,” she said, decidedly with a nod. “You’re right, Ben. Fuck everyone else.” He grinned, watching as she crossed the dance floor, tugging up a stunned Phasma, and reaching up to wrap her arms around the smiling blonde’s neck.

If only he were able to have such conviction regarding his own love life. 

Freed from date obligations, he perused the punchbowl, pocketed some extra cookies from the snack table, and chatted with a few of his track teammates. Kaydel kept Poe on the dance floor the entire time, and Armie was practically wrapped around his date like a mink stole. 

Bored to the brink of tears, Ben wished he had his car instead of having to wait for the stupid limo to come back and pick them up. He’d be out of there so fast.

A finger tapped on his shoulder and he looked down to see the Corrick girl standing beside him with a smile. Her white dress glowed blue in the black lights, her blonde hair twisted up and fancy, a few white flowers placed here and there. Candy? Cammie? He wasn’t sure of her name. He knew she was a freshman, which meant she must have come there as someone else’s date.

“Hey,” she smiled up at him with perfectly straight, bleached teeth that were also tinted blue in the black light. Rocking on her heels a little, she looked out to the dance floor with a raise of her eyebrows. “I know you came with a date, but if you don’t think she’d mind, I’d love to dance with you?” Her tone was light, hopeful. 

Ben  _ did not _ want to dance right now. He’d rather sit at a table and play a solitary game of marbles with the small, glass orbs stuffed in all the table centerpieces. Maybe sit in the hallway and count the lockers or the watermarks in the ceiling tiles. 

He sighed internally, watching as her face faltered a little at his lack of response. He also didn’t want to make a girl cry on prom night.

“Sure,” he accepted, as the relief and excitement flooded her features. 

She talked.  _ A lot _ . And asked a fuck-ton of questions. What music did he like? What concerts had he been too? What movies had he seen lately? Did he like the ending of a tv show he had never heard of? Was he going to be a track team captain next year? What were his ambitions for college?

He answered politely, chalking her chatterbox interrogation up to nerves.

“If you’re dating Rey Andor, why did you bring Paige Tico to the prom?”

That question stunned him a little. 

“I’m, uh, I’m not dating Rey,” he corrected reluctantly. It was not really a topic he felt much like talking about with someone he hardly even knew. Randi? Goddamn,  _ what was her name? _

“Oh,” her tone had a hint of curiosity to it. “I just heard something about it and, you know, at the party at my house you seemed… close.” She let the sentence float in the air as her crystalline pale eyes roved over his face like she was trying to read his expression. He vaguely remembered her from the party, but it was hard to piece together peripheral details between his inebriation and Rey’s attention absorbing presence in that outfit. 

He cleared his throat.  _ For the love of God, how long was this song? _

“We’re… friends.” Were they ever really, though? It seemed like a stretch.

He didn’t need to elaborate, but for some reason, he added. “She’s my neighbor and my sister’s best friend.” 

The Corrick girl hummed, looking over her shoulder towards Kaydel and Poe. Poe had his cheek resting on the top of Kaydel’s head as they swayed together sweetly. 

“I don’t think she likes me.”

_ Kandri! _ That was it! Her name was Kandri!

He almost snorted a guffaw on the poor girl. “Didn’t like” was an incredibly tame understatement about his sister’s feelings towards the petite blonde before him. 

When the song ended, she smiled up at him again.

“I hope to see you at another party. My parents are going out of town again in August,” she said with a tone that Ben couldn’t help but identify as suggestive. It stirred him slightly. 

Ben gave her a polite, tight-lipped nod.

Later, when the limo dropped him and Kay off outside of their house, his eyes naturally floated up to Rey’s window. Her light was still on. He wondered if she was up, waiting for Kaydel to get home so she could call her and they could talk about the night.

“If you ask out Kandri Corrick, I will never speak to you again,” Kaydel told him, hefting up the goldenrod fabric and crinoline layers of her dress to walk across the grass as the limo pulled away from the curb.

Ben snorted.

“That’s all it would take?”

His sister’s brow furrowed, her mouth in a straight line, as she stopped to look back at him. 

“I’m serious, Ben. There’s… there’s something about her. Other people don’t see it, but I do. I see  _ right _ through her.”

Kaydel was dramatic, and she was definitely strong-headed and sneaky, but she wasn’t  _ mean _ . Well, she wasn’t mean to people other than him, but that was a two-way sibling street they both recklessly sped down. 

“I’m… not planning on it.”

School ended shortly after and summer had officially begun. 

Per usual, he mowed lawns all morning and came home to cool off in the pool during the afternoons. Some days, Rey would still be there, usually drying herself off or wrapping herself in a towel getting ready to go back to her own house. Other days, he would get to the pool and find out she had been long gone. 

Wounded by it, he almost considered just coming out and confronting her. Letting out a frustrated growl and telling her the sad news that she couldn’t avoid him forever. 

That was until he saw her scurry down the driveway one afternoon in a black polo shirt boasting the emblem to the local movie theater over her breast, to jump into Jyn’s passenger seat.

“She got her youth employment papers,” Kaydel said, unenthused, combing through Poe’s damp curly hair, their two floating rafts linked together by his arm wrapped around her leg. “I wish she hadn’t, it's a waste of a summer, but she really wants to buy a car.”

Somehow, he managed to convince Armie and Breyla that weekly movie theater nights could be fun. Breyla always offered to bring a friend, in case Ben felt like a third wheel, but Ben would politely decline each time.

Rey always slipped them free popcorn, wordlessly.

Halfway through their fourth visit, some movie where “The Rock” was yelling aggressively as a city collapsed and exploded around him, Rey slid into the open seat beside him. She leaned forward to give a quick wave to Armie and Breyla, who made a move to pass the popcorn bag her way. Making a little face of disgust, Rey pressed her hands to her belly and shook her head.

Ben spent the rest of the movie with  _ his _ stomach stuck to the back of his spine. 

When the credits rolled, he mumbled to her an offer for a ride home, astounded at the ability of his own tongue to work again in her company. To his surprise, she accepted, and it was a painfully quiet ride with the bones of his knuckles threatening to split from their skin over the steering wheel. 

Parked in his driveway, he shut the car off. The sound of her popping the button of her seatbelt had him expecting her to leap from her seat with a hasty goodbye and a door slammed in his face. She didn’t move though, just stared straight ahead at the parked back-end of his father’s SUV. 

He shifted, and he never thought clothing on leather seats could be so brutally loud.

“You don’t have to be uncomfortable around me,” he said, almost apologetically.

“I wish you’d stop being so weird around me!” she spat out at the same time, exasperated. 

She turned to face him and they stared at each other, mouths open, eyes blinking. 

“ _ You’re _ being weird to  _ me! _ ” he accused, astonished.

“Because you don’t talk around me anymore!”

“What the hell’s the point? You wouldn’t answer me anyway!”

“Answer what exactly?  _ Silence? _ ” she snapped.

They blinked at each other some more, before Ben cracked a smile, just barely. Rey huffed a laugh, turning back to the front window, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. 

“If you decide you’re going to write a song about this, please tell me before you perform it in front of the entire student body,” she joked, light-heartedly. 

Ben grunted amusedly. It relieved him that she seemed comfortable enough to joke about it. Shifting down in his seat, his fingers drummed on the bottom curve of the steering wheel. “Let’s just both blame Poe for that one. I would have preferred if no one ever heard it,” he tipped his head back to the headrest and closed his eyes. “It wasn’t really something I was eager to share. It just kind of... happened.”

Rey hummed as if she somehow understood. It was nice of her to empathize, he supposed. After all, while he stood on a stage being tortured by lyrics he wrote about her; she sat in the audience, coming to the probably horrific realization that she was the muse to her neighbor’s pathetic song. 

Ben rolled his head slightly to peek at her from the corner of his eye. She had shifted down in her seat too, arms folded over her stomach, but not in an uncomfortable way, just relaxed, looking out the window.

“It’s kind of cool that you can do that though, you know? Take a moment in your life and turn it into art. Make it something people can share with you or can love on their own,” she said quietly. “Even if it wasn’t—” she stopped herself. 

Ben was hanging off the end of her sentence by his fingertips when she turned to him abruptly.

“Can we smoke again sometime? Like, just you and me?”

That caused him to jerk back a little, surprised. 

“Uh, sure. Yeah.”

Nodding, her hand tugged on the door handle, flooding the car with light and searing his eyes into a squint. 

“Cool. Thanks for the ride, Ben,” she said, slipping out of her seat and shutting the door behind her, leaving him stunned behind the wheel. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


At the end of July, the Andor’s left for a ten-day trip to Panama.

One of those mornings, he stood in the kitchen, yawning and rubbing his eyes as his mother scurried around him, running late for work.

“Here, darling,” she said, pressing something into his palm as she shrugged on a business jacket, a piece of toast hanging from her mouth. She bit into it, chewing, and she lifted her chin in his direction. “Can you please go over and check on the Andor’s house for me? Nothing crazy, just a quick walkthrough to make sure everything is in place. Maybe turn on a lamp in the living room or something, so people don’t notice the house is completely dark.”

Ben looked down at the simple key in his hand as she rushed out the door.

Which was how he ended up in front of Rey’s bedroom having a guilt-ridden meltdown. 

Because it would be completely and totally fucking _ fucked _ to invite yourself into your crush’s bedroom like some nosy, and weird voyeur. Right?

Right.

His fingertips gently pushed on the door and it slowly swung open with a faint creak.

He could just stand at the threshold, like a sad, yearning vampire. That… wouldn’t be _ too _ bad, would it?

He took a step forward. 

_ He was going to hell. _

He took a step back.

No, it was fine. He was just curious. He wasn’t going to do anything horrific, like rifle through her underwear drawer.  _ Jesus Christ, where had that thought even come from?! _

The walls were soft, calming lavender, painted with the cheery summer sun streaming inside, defused by a set of illuminated white curtains. No posters, but off in the corner she had a sewing machine above which hung a large corkboard with several sketches, design patterns, and ripped pictures from magazines pinned to it. 

Bolts of fabric leaned against the wall beside stacks of plastic organizers, their opaque sides looking like blurred rainbows.

A large mirror sat atop another smaller desk. A few brushes rested with their bristles pushed skyward out of a cup, while makeup items were neatly placed in little strategic stacks along the wooden desktop. The dried flower crown she wore for 8th-grade graduation hung off the mirror’s corner, and below it was a picture taped to the glass.

It was the picture that magnetically pulled him to move his feet across her floor. 

Upon closer inspection, he recognized the shot of the neighborhood kids from her graduation day. 

His hand reacted on its own, snatching the picture from the mirror in abject, physical horror.

He was  _ smelling _ her hair! Or her flower crown or...  _ whatever! _

Ben was going to die. Die on this very spot in her room, holding this picture, and they would find his rotting, stinking corpse when the Andor’s came home in a few days.

Two detectives would stand above the sheet they tossed over him, disgusted.

_ “Looks like the kid was always a bit of a freak,” one would say, holding the picture in his hand with a tut and shake of his head. _

_ The other would frown, hands on their hips. “I’m just glad he never made it to her underwear drawer,” and then he’d spit and kick his wingtip against Ben’s pathetic dead ass.  _

Ben took a deep shuddering breath to calm himself. It was fine. This… was fine. She had obviously had this picture for a year— 

Wait.

She had taped this picture to her mirror for a  _ year _ . Because... she liked it. Because there was something in this photo that she wanted to look at every day. His eyes roved over the photo’s other occupants. Their laughs, the pure happiness the picture exuded. A captured moment in time, forever burned into the emulsion. It made him think about what she said in his car, about creating something people considered art. 

Maybe… maybe this moment meant the same to her as it did to him?

Rey’s pretty face smiled up at him and he remembered her arm wrapped around his waist—his wrapped around hers. 

She had smelled so good… her  _ room _ smelled so good. He wondered if he placed his face to her pillow if it would— 

_ Nope _ . He needed to get the fuck out of there. 

The second wave of panic rolled over him as he realized the tape didn’t make a clean break from the mirror, leaving behind a jagged triangle of translucent plastic stuck to the glass. Certainly noticeable, especially to someone who looked at the same picture every day. 

It took him nearly 20 minutes to rummage through the Andor’s drawers to find a roll of tape. To measure out the exact length of the original strip, to pick at the stupid patch that wouldn’t come off the mirror because he didn’t have enough of a fingernail to catch it. He nearly screamed in frustration, his hands shaking, as the picture tore just slightly as he removed the tape from its surface. 

When he finished, he was practically hyperventilating as he walked backward, inspecting the carpet making sure he didn’t leave footprints.

Honestly, what the fuck was he thinking coming in here?!

Closing the door again and tearing his hands through his hair, he vowed to never touch anything in Rey’s bedroom  _ ever _ again.

  
  


***

  
  


In Panama, they stayed on a chain of islands, in a cabin raised on stilts that stood right in the clear blue water. 

With no glass in the windows, Rey woke to the sun every morning streaming through a gossamer bug canopy. It made her feel like she was in a fairy tale, despite it’s pretty gross and essential purpose. 

They swam every day, and quickly, her and Cassian’s skin became darker and toasted, despite layers and layers of sunscreen. Her freckles deepened, the patched little dots fanning out in clusters over her shoulders, cheeks, nose, and forehead. They took hundreds of pictures on the beaches, at sunset, at dinner, in the small shopping villages and towns they visited.

Rey had never been on a vacation before, and on the final night, after a long day of snorkeling, and with a belly full of sancocho and hojaldras, she settled into her bed with a happy little sigh, as the sound of the ocean coaxed her into her dreams. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


She didn’t mind working in the movie theater. It was always cool inside, so that was nice on the hotter summer nights.

Cleaning gum off of seats or mopping the sticky floors wasn’t exactly glamorous or a good time, but she got to watch whatever movies she wanted for free, so that was kind of nice too.

When they discovered she was working there, Ben, Armie, and Breyla had been coming in for the 9 o’clock movie every Wednesday night. One time, Poe and Kaydel even joined them. 

A different time, Finn, Rose, Paige, and Phas came too. She suspected the Tico’s didn’t know Rose was meeting Finn there. They had a strict “no boys” policy when it came to unsupervised activities. 

Rey was beginning to realize that everyone kept little secrets like that. Poe and Kaydel at first. Phas and Paige (who openly took to holding hands while they were out of the Tico’s watchful eyesight), maybe even Finn and Rose, but she wasn’t going to pressure her friend if she didn’t want to talk about it.

She and Ben.

He started giving her rides home on the nights that he came in. Sometimes having to wait for her a full half-hour before she clocked out. Promising he didn’t mind, he’d uncomfortably cram himself into one of the display theater chairs in the lobby and entertain himself while she cleaned the popcorn machine and swept the floors.

Her manager assumedly called him her boyfriend, and she never corrected him. 

They would park up the street from their houses with the headlights off and share a joint, listening to music with the windows up. It was their own little time to steal away. When his parents were asleep and hers were assuming she was still at work. 

“Did Kaydel tell you about the berry harvest?” he asked, his breath held in as he handed her the nearly finished pinched roll. 

She shook her head. 

The first time they had done this, he offered to shotgun it for her again, and it caused an intense, reactionary tightening between her thighs that made her face flame. She declined and spent about two full minutes coughing up a lung afterward. 

She took a hit, used to the smoke now, and tilted her head back.

“At your uncle Luke’s?” she asked, strained.

He nodded, watching her quietly.

He looked handsome in the dark, half his face hidden in shadow, the other colored a pale orange from the streetlight ahead. His ears peeked out of his black hair due to a recent haircut and she decided she liked that. She thought about touching his ears sometimes. Just reaching over and running her fingers over the shell, pushing back some hair as she did it. Several times now, when both of their heads were against their seats and they were facing each other, she thought she would just lean forward and press her lips to his. 

The worst he could do was pull away. The best he could do was kiss her back.

But Rey wouldn’t like it if someone did that to her. If they just  _ assumed _ that it was okay, no matter how close they were. She wouldn’t want Finn, or Poe (despite their attachments to her friends) to take a liberty like that towards her. So she wouldn’t do it to Ben.

He had already told her how he felt. What was the old saying? Drunken words being sober thoughts? Yeah. Sisterly, kid-neighbor, go play with your dolls, little girl—sober thoughts. 

But… at least now they were okay again. Also, she guessed, for the first time really, ever, they were sort of friends. 

Not that they talked about anything super profound. Mostly music. He asked her curious questions about the clothing she liked to alter or make as a hobby. She was surprised he even noticed, considering most people hardly ever did. 

Rey let out a billow of smoke that rolled, blooming out against the windshield, clouding the car even more. Her clothes were going to stink. She would need to wash them and probably take a shower when she got home.

A weightless relaxation was starting to take over her body, as she passed the joint back to Ben. 

It was a lot easier to smoke pot with Ben Solo than she could have ever fantasized. Kaydel and Poe pretty much always wanted to curl up in some corner to tongue-lap and fondle each other anyway, so they hardly ever noticed when she and Ben were off on their own. Maybe they hadn't even made the connection that they were together at all.

After a drag, he made to pass the joint back to her but she gave him a silent hand up in refusal. He took one more hit, before snuffing it out on the glass of the driver's side window.

They sat, listening to music.

Rey kicked off her shoes, leaving them on the floor mat and stretching her legs out onto the dashboard. She tossed one ankle over another and sighed. 

She certainly didn't want to become some kind of burnout pothead, but she was definitely enjoying this becoming a weekly ritual. 

Ben reclined his seat, his arms stretching up to fold behind his head. His shirt lifted, exposing a strip of his stomach, a trail of downy dark hair leading to the band of his underwear, poking out from above the button of his jeans.

It sent her brain spiraling into a place it very much didn’t need to go.

Clearing her throat, she shifted, eyes feeling like they were on a delayed drag as she pulled them away.

“You should come,” he said.

Her brain was too horny and fuzzy for this. “Huh?” she asked, in a bit of a squeak.

His face scrunched in a bit of a frown as he looked at her down the line of his nose. “To the berry harvest. Luke is pretty much always looking for free labor. But it’s a fun weekend. He usually roasts a whole pig, and people bring a shit-ton of food and booze.” He dropped his arms and shifted to his side, head propped up on his hand. “He’s got like 100 acres of land or something like that, fucking crazy old hippie. I’d pretty much guarantee there’s marijuana growing  _ somewhere _ on his property,” he grinned, flashing that crooked incisor she wanted to press her tongue against. “We could turn it into a treasure hunt.” 

She turned slightly to face him and his eyes moved over her. The music filled the car, the notes and lyrics floating to brush over her skin, as his gaze landed again on her face.

“He’s got a couple of trailers he keeps on the property for people to stay in, but some people just choose to camp out in tents. Jyn and Cassian came one year before you lived with them. I’m pretty sure Cassian, Luke, and my dad took some drugs and tripped their faces off.”

Rey snorted, a smile stretching across her face. “Now there’s something I’d love to see.” 

Maybe it was the weed, but it seemed like he was looking at her differently now. Soft and thoughtful, probably thinking about trying to smear the freckles on her face again. 

The pressure in the car seemed to shift, intensify, as the song changed—a waltz-like, drifting melody. Accompanied by the same deep, gruff voice they had been listening to.

“I like this artist,” she said for some stupid reason, her voice leaking out of her mouth in a whispy breath.

Ben’s head lifted from his hand and he pressed into his elbow as he shifted closer to her. “Me too,” he said softly, his eyes moving down to her mouth.

Rey leaned forward too. 

The sound of a flat palm slapping onto the driver side window sent her flying back in her seat, causing her to knock her skull against her own window with a loud yelp. Searing pain ripped across the back of her head as Poe laughed hysterically outside of Ben’s window, gripping his sides. 

Ben cursed, clearly fucking livid, sitting up in his seat and pushing open his door.

“ _ Seriously, you fucking asshole?! _ ” Ben roared, before looking back to Rey, his frown dark. “Are you okay?” 

She nodded, her hand cupped over the tender spot. 

“I’m the fucking asshole?” Poe joked, lowering his face to look into the car interior. “You two are having a hot-box party and you didn’t even bother to invite us?”

Kaydel bent down beside him, grinning. 

“You guys look  _ cozy _ ,” she teased, her eyes sparkling with mischief. 

Mortified, and now in pain, Rey slipped her feet back into her shoes, her hand fumbling for the door handle.

“Thanks for the ride, Ben,” she mumbled, pushing herself out of the car hurriedly, her whole body feeling like it was shivering from cold. 

What the fuck had just happened in there? And what could have happened if it didn’t get interrupted?

“Rey!” Kaydel shouted, chasing after her.

Rey didn’t slow her steps as they pounded on the asphalt. 

“Rey,” Kaydel laughed, huffing to catch up with her. “C’mon, don’t be mad! We were just trying to scare you! It was a joke!”

“I know,” Rey growled, irritably, her hand lifting to the back of her head again. She winced at the tenderness of her scalp.

Kaydel kept in stride next to her before she reached out and caught her hand. Rey stopped, her breath tight, and face on fire. 

“D-did we… interrupt something?” Kaydel asked.

Rey’s face pinched involuntarily. She was high and emotional, and very, very much confused about what was actually broken up back there.

“No,” she pressed out tightly. “No we-we were just smoking. Sometimes he gives me a ride home. It’s nothing weird. It’s—I don’t  _ like _ Ben like that!” she nearly shouted.

She didn’t know why she lied. Everything felt too raw, too exposed. Too scary for her to admit the truth right now, on the brink of hyperventilating. 

The footsteps approaching them stopped abruptly. She looked over to see Poe and Ben. Poe’s mouth hung open uncomfortably, as his eyes bounced from Rey to Kaydel, then finally to Ben. Ben who had his head down, hands shoved in his pockets, his jaw shifting tightly. 

Rey felt like she could sink into the pavement. 

For a few moments the only noises on the street were the crickets and Rey’s heavy breaths.

“Right,” was all Ben said, quietly, as he kept his head down, passing her on the street.

Rey watched him as stunned tears started to needle her eyes. Why did he look so hurt?  _ He _ was the one who said he cared for her like a sister! You would think he would be relieved!

“Wh-what about your car?” Poe called after him.

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” Ben bit back, his stalking gait not broken as he continued down the darkened street.

Something inside of Rey wilted.

Ben didn’t come to the movies again for the rest of the summer.

  
  
  


***

  
  


On Labor Day weekend, they took the trip to Luke’s berry farm, nearly an hour away. Located clear on the other side of the city, up a steep, small mountain. 

Rey kept her face pressed to the window, watching in fascination as they took a long, bumpy road through the woods, deep into the heart of nowhere. 

“Rey,” Cassian warned, and she pulled her attention from the scenery to him in the driver's seat. “If anyone asks if you want to try Luke’s “special tea” you are to immediately run away screaming, understand?”

Jyn laughed openly from the passenger’s seat. She twisted back to look at Rey.

“Cassian spent an entire night slaying dragons beside Han in an empty field during a bad peyote trip,” she said flatly.

Rey giggled, imagining the ridiculousness of it. 

“Woke up with an empty beer box on my head and a vacuum attachment taped to my arm,” he shook his head. “It wasn’t as fun as that may sound. So yeah, no tea. Just… don’t do it. Learn from my mistake, young one.”

They passed a sign for Skywalker Farm, an old faded thing with a cluster of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries painted on it. 

They parked on the side of the house, among the other cars, unloading sleeping bags, coolers, and a tent. 

Kaydel offered Rey a bed in one of the trailers, grumbling about Poe not being able to sleep in there anyway, so they only packed one air mattress for Cassian and Jyn to share.

Luke’s house was really nothing more than a fancy double-wide, attached to a big, wooden deck. The yard seemed to stretch out forever. An extensive vegetable garden was to the left of the house, with black tarps covering the soil, tall wooden dowels pointing to the sky, wrapped in vines and leaves. Sheds were plopped in seemingly mindless patters here and there; and a tall barn stood off to the left, the roof caved in. A large gazebo was placed close to the house, and a massive fire pit yawned to the summer sky, empty. It was lined with boulders the size of school desks, the soot of its belly visible even from its spot pushed all the way to the back of the property.

There was every kind of outdoor seating ever invented, scattered across the backlot. A two-seater swing, several handmade wooden lawn chairs, a few long benches, two picnic tables, and some strange thing twisted out of metal to look like a hand, with the open palm as its seat.

Greetings and introductions were made before Cassian and Jyn went to scope out a place to set up the tent, leaving Rey to look around for Kaydel and Poe. 

Instead she found Ben playing a game of cornhole with a very pretty girl, with dark curly hair that floated and swayed hypnotically as she moved in the summer breeze. She wore a pair of short-overalls, over a hot pink bathing suit top. Tipping her head back, she let out a hearty laugh, and instantly Rey knew that she was Lando’s daughter, Jannah. 

Rey approached them with quiet steps, a little wary.

Ben’s broad and happy smile fell, when he looked over to her, the disappearance of his dimples causing a churn to her guts.

“Hey,” she said quietly, nervously pulling a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze dropping to the grass. 

“Hey,” he said back, simply.

Ugh. 

“I was looking for Kaydel,” she said uncomfortably, her eyes raising again. Ben was bent over, picking up the beanbags next to his board. He was dressed in his typical outfit, dark t-shirt, dark jeans, rebelling against perfect summer weather. 

“Uh, I think they went down to the pond,” he shook his hair off his forehead when he stood, his head tipping back.

“Hey, I’m Jannah,” Jannah said with a big, charming smile, just like her dad’s. Rey smiled back with a small wave.

“Nice to finally meet you.”

“Same,” Jannah gave a quick glance to Ben, then back to Rey. “Do you know where the pond is?”

Rey went to shake her head and tell her no, but Ben interrupted.

“It’s her first time here,” he dropped the collected bean bags into a canvas sack with a pull string and then tossed it across the way for Jannah to catch. “You mind showing her how to get there? I promised my dad I’d help him and Luke with some shit before dinner.”

“Yeah,” Jannah beamed, coming over to stand beside Rey. “You bring a suit?”

  
  
  


***

  
  


There had to have been easily a hundred people spread throughout the backyard by dinnertime. Every kind of picnic food imaginable was laid out over a series of banquet tables, making for the most delectable buffet Rey had ever experienced. Ears of golden corn, rows and rows of roasted vegetables, an entire rainbows worth of fruit spread out beside huge bowls of pasta and potato salads. Steaming silver pans sat in frames, ready to have guests spoon out heaps of baked beans, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and sausage with peppers and onions.

The pig had its own separate table. Ribs—Baby Backs, dry-rubbed, spareribs drenched in barbeque sauce. Pulled pork, a whole pork roast stuffed with cloves of garlic and rosemary sprigs, and ham slow roasted in slices of pineapple. Porkchops with perfect diamond grill marks and deep-fried pork belly. Even the feet were used, but Rey had absolutely no desire to indulge in them at all. 

She sat with Kaydel and Poe, as Poe practically sucked the meat off of a rib bone and groaned. 

“This is the best meal of my life,” he said with a certain level of ecstasy.

Rey had to agree. Everything was amazing. Kaydel hummed in agreement.

“This is how he bribes us. Feeds us first, so we don’t get all pissed off picking a bazillion berries for him in the sweltering sun all day tomorrow,” Kay joked.

Skywalker Farm opened each year after the fourth of July, allowing visitors to pick pints and flats of their own berries, but at the end of the season, Luke held a massive “pick party” to clear the bushes, selling off the berries to companies for preserves and juice. 

They lit a massive bonfire, the pit so big Rey bet two parked cars could easily fit in it. Han and Cassian continually fed the flaming beast large logs, chatting while drinking their beers off to the side. 

Rey sat beside Jyn and Leia, each of them relaxing in sweatshirts and leggings, reclined in their camping chairs, wine in hand. 

They were discussing Ben’s college plans, and Rey was trying her best not to look completely captivated by the conversation. 

“He’ll figure it out,” Jyn assured, after Leia vented her frustration with Ben dragging his feet on picking a university. 

Leia sighed deeply. 

Rey looked across the high roaring flames, to Poe and Ben, the two boys deep in an animated conversation. 

Ben was grinning in that sly, disbelieving way he did when Poe was clearly telling a bullshit, exaggerated story. 

“I know,” Leia continued. “I feel like he’s just so stoic sometimes. Far too much for a young man. He internalizes things like a pressure cooker. I get worried when he makes things harder for himself than they really need to be.”

Rey wondered if maybe he did that with her.

Ben’s eyes moved to Rey’s as if he knew she was thinking about him. She looked away.

Morning came with the loud, obnoxious crow from a rooster outside of the camper she, Kaydel, and Jannah shared. A fucking  _ rooster _ . 

Breakfast was thick-cut bacon, eggs, and a giant slab of toast slathered with blackberry jam. 

The guests were assigned to certain fields, spreading out along the rows with giant baskets to fill and bring to a tractor with a flatbed holding huge blue bins, ready to receive the harvested fruit. 

Rey had been put in a strawberry field with the simple instructions to “pick the plants clean.”

A few hours in, she was incredibly thankful she wore a wide-brimmed sun hat and a stupidly high SPF, as her tank top and shorts were soaked with sweat from the late-summer sun. She had already picked five full baskets worth of strawberries and was feeling pretty proud of herself. 

She was working on her sixth when a shadow fell over her shoulders, giving instant relief from the unrelenting beat of the sun’s rays upon her back. It even caused her to sigh a little, as she looked up, still needing to block her eyes from the glare, even with sunglasses on. 

Ben stood above her, holding out a bottle of water, it’s contents sloshing and sparkling. 

“Here,” he said simply, as she stood, her knees aching slightly. “‘I didn’t think you saw them getting passed out. I thought you might need it.”

He was in a simple white tank, patches of dirt smudged across one pectoral, another down his side. His skin glistened with sweat, his big broad shoulders tinted a slight pink. He was wearing a brimmed hat that had a flap on the back, which should have been incredibly goofy, but somehow still looked good on him. 

Rey cracked open the water bottle, unaware of how incredibly thirsty she was until that very moment. Sweet, cool water slid down her throat, instantly relieving her.

With a gasp, she broke the bottle from her lips. “Thank you.”

Ben nodded, before giving a look around. 

“I’m stuck in blueberries. Strawberries are much better,” he said, casually.

Rey smiled, relieved that he was seemingly back to normal again. She wanted things to be normal between them. Anything but awkward silence. 

“Oh?” she asked, before taking another sip of water. “Are blueberries harder to pick?”

“Nah,” Ben grinned, squatting down to rifle around in the leaves, before producing a ripe, bright-red, and perfect strawberry held by the stem between his fingers. “I just like strawberries better,” he said, standing. 

“You’re not really supposed to,” he continued, “but one of my favorite things when I was a kid was to eat them right off the bush.” He gave a quick look around, before holding out the berry for her.

Oddly, it hadn’t even occurred to her to try one.

She didn’t know what she was thinking when she stepped forward, biting into it as he held it out for her.

It was  _ warm _ . The juices, vibrant and alive, soaking her mouth. It was the  _ best _ strawberry she had ever had. She chewed it slowly, savoring it.

She hadn’t even realized she closed her eyes until she opened them, Ben still standing before her, mouth slightly open, eyes a little dazed.

Swallowing, her tongue swept into the corner of her lips, catching a taste of extra juice. 

He was still staring.

“Why aren’t you supposed to eat them off the bush?”

Ben blinked, eyes clearing up a little.

“Uh,” he forced out, glancing down to the remainder of the bit berry pinched between his fingers. He raised it to his mouth and Rey watched in fascination at the way his teeth sank into what was left, his lips wrapping around the rest of the juicy red fruit. Only the green leaves and white crown of the berry were left as he chewed. 

“You know—dirt, bugs… pesticides, and shit.”

Rey’s eyes widened and he laughed, tossing the stem somewhere in the field. 

“Relax. I ate it too,” he grinned and licked at his lips. “You’ll live, I promise.”

She nodded, and reached up, pressing a finger firmly to his shoulder, watching the white imprint of her digit blush back into the red. 

“You’re burning,” she said simply. 

His hand rose to rub where she had touched. 

“Time to reapply, I guess,” he said simply with a small smile, before turning and walking down the dirt row between the bushes.

Rey spent the rest of the day thinking about how she bit a fricken berry from his hand like an animal at the petting zoo. 

When the berries were picked, the majority of the guests descended on the small pond, not too far from Luke’s house. The water was cool, refreshing, and exactly what Rey needed at the end of the long day.

Some younger kids zipped around the field trails on go-karts, while the adults began opening beer and wine bottles, starting to get another feast ready. A massive fire was started again, and in the gazebo, Luke had strung up Christmas lights to decorate around a tv, microphone, and speaker he had placed inside for karaoke.

The adults were getting drunk pretty quickly. Cassian spun Jyn around as they danced barefoot in the grass, Jyn’s wine splashing out a little bit with their movements. Mr. and Mrs. Solo sat in front of the fire, arms wrapped around each other, heads tipped to rest together comfortably. 

Everywhere she looked it seemed like people were happy, whether they were relaxing, dancing, or singing Mariah Carey songs off-key. It made her smile.

An old, paint-splattered boombox sat in the grass, pumping classic rock hits out into the night air. 

The later it got, the more the crowd thinned out. The karaoke gazebo went dark, the boombox went silent, but the fire still roared. 

At one point, when the temperature dropped, she and Jannah had walked back to the trailer to change out of their shorts and into pants. She slipped on a long-sleeved t-shirt, figuring it would be enough with the heat of the fire.

Rey’s parents, the Solo’s, and a bunch of other couples decided to have a poker tournament in the house, while the kids stayed outside, still gathered around the fire. 

The teens, a few outside of their core group that Rey had been introduced to earlier in the day, secluded themselves from the younger kids in their own little cluster. 

Kaydel sat, reclined between Poe’s knees, as he sat with his back against the wooden bench Rey was seated on. Jannah was in a camping chair, chatting with a blonde boy in a matching chair beside her. A red-headed girl from Dagobah High giggled into the shoulder of a boy Rey kind of knew from her pre-algebra class last year. 

She had no idea where Ben was, and she contemplated making up an excuse to maybe go look for him somewhere. 

They were supposed to go on a marijuana treasure hunt, after all.

“Hey,” Kaydel whispered harshly, pulling Rey’s attention away from the flickering and dancing flames in front of her. “We’re going skinny dipping, wanna come?” The other kids must have already talked about it because some of them started to stand and giddily dust themselves off. 

“Uh,” she began, feeling a warmth suddenly present at her side, as Ben stretched his long legs over the bench, dropping to sit beside her. His weight shifted the two-seat wooden frame a little with a rock forward. His knee pressed against hers.

Rey's eyes darted from Poe and Kay, across the others in the group. Not one to consider herself a prude, the idea of being naked in front of a group full of friends and strangers was not appealing to her. Like,  _ at all _ . 

Ben leaned forward, folding his arms over his spread knees. 

“You’re feeling bold,” he said to his sister, teasingly. 

Kaydel eyes shot up to the stars briefly. “Mom and Dad are going to be totally schnockered by the time they finish poker. Besides, we won’t even be gone that long.”

“Mmhmm,” Ben replied, as his elbow rubbed against Rey’s, her own elbows resting on top of her knees. 

And then, very gently, she felt a tap to her arm.

She glanced down, to see Ben’s outstretched finger, very subtly touching her elbow. He tapped it again, twice.

A bubbling sensation floated to the top of her chest, and she swallowed it down, watching Poe and Kaydel stand. 

“You coming?” Poe nodded to Ben with a grin. “Show us once and for all if those locker room rumors are true,  _ So-lami Smuggler? _ ”

“ _ Ew! _ ” Kaydel shrieked, slamming her arm into Poe’s stomach as he laughed wickedly, shrinking away.

Beside her, Ben scoffed, although a smile tipped his lips humorously.

“Naked swimming with my sister  _ and _ my cousin? No fucking thanks.”

Rey’s pulse was thumping like the bass drum. He had tapped her like that on purpose, right? It couldn’t have been an accident. 

And… locker room rumors? How had she never— 

Poe rubbed at his belly with a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t really think about that...” He shrugged, “You coming, ‘bean?”

Her eyes shifted to the side to meet Ben’s. His face neutral, showing no signs of what he was thinking. His finger was pulled back, curled with his others around his arm, still almost pressed against hers. 

Had she imagined it?

A knuckle delicately grazed the back of her arm in a gentle rub.

Her insides went hollow.

No, she hadn’t. He wanted her to stay. She almost smiled as relief washed over her, suddenly realizing how desperately she wanted to be alone with him. 

“No,” she said quietly, looking back to her friends as they stood before her. “It’s too cold for swimming,” she amended with a weak smile, rubbing the arms of her long-sleeved shirt for emphasis, her knuckles brushing against the cotton of Ben’s hooded sweatshirt. 

“Mm-hmm,” Poe hummed lowly, his eyes locked to Ben’s with a hint of a smile. “Alright babe,” he said quickly, wrapping his arm over Kaydel’s shoulders and spinning her in the direction of the pond. “Let’s get naked.” 

He gave Rey a little wink over his shoulder. 

“Thanks for that, Poe,” Ben muttered, and Rey gave a small chuckle, placing her hand over her forehead with a shake to her head. 

In front of them the fire crackled and roared, while they sat side by side, their bodies still awkwardly pressed together at their sides.

“Wanna see something?” he asked quietly. 

_ If the locker room rumors are true? _ She thought jokingly, instantly mad at herself for it.

“Sure,” she returned softly, with a small smile.

Ben stood, blocking out the warmth of the fire before her, his palm open for her to take. She did, letting it go once she stood, her face tipped up to his.

“Lead the way.”

They walked side by side in the moonlight, the fields painted blue and black in the dark. Over the dirt roads that connected the large berry fields, cutting through valleys of picked over bushes and vines. They reached a patch of the thicket that he gently guided her through, her hand tight in his, as his feet tentatively led the way on a worn, but barely visible path. 

“There’s a root here,” he murmured softly, moving her past it with their hands clasped tight, his free hand guiding her on her lower back so she wouldn’t trip.

She didn’t release his hand when they emerged from the small batch of trees and he didn’t let go of hers either.

They entered another large, wide-open field. No rows of vegetation in this one. Just grass that shone and shifted silver in the breath of the wind sweeping across the mountain. 

The stars were bright, hung in the sky like thousands of twinkling diamonds—some whole, some dusted, scattered across the night sky. In the distance fireflies blinked in and out of existence, lazily floating and dancing around each other in a breathtaking show. 

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, momentarily awed, dropping Ben’s hand from her own.

With a rush of internal, wild instinct, Rey ran forward, turning in the field, arms spread, face tilted to the sky. 

“This is ama—” she turned to face Ben, the sentence dying on her lips. “Oh wow,” she gasped.

He grinned at her, wide and seemingly thrilled with her reaction. He turned to look behind him too. “Cool, right?”

“Yeah,” her eyes glittered with emotion, sweeping over the landscape of the far off city lights below them, laying over the horizon like a soft, blinking blanket of lights. “It doesn’t look… real,” she breathed. 

They stood side by side, the wind carrying the harmonizing chorus of peeper frogs, crickets, and whooping night birds across the field to them. 

After a while, Ben stooped to sit in the grass, before reclining back to lay down and look up at the stars. 

Rey followed suit, feeling a little stupid just standing above him like a dweeb. She laid out beside him, but at the opposite end—her head near his ratty, old sneakers. Crossing her own feet at the ankles, she folded her arms behind her head, tipping her chin up with a satisfied smile.

This was the best night ever, she thought, enjoying the melodious sounds nature offered at night. She shivered slightly. It was perfect, even if she was just a little bit cold.

“This was always my favorite spot to come to when we stayed here,” Ben said softly after a little while. “I used to sneak out after everyone went to bed or the adults were too drunk to notice.” He let out a quiet little chuckle, “I even fell asleep out here once. I woke up in the morning and all the grass was covered with frost,” he paused, hesitating. “It was the closest I’ve ever felt to God,” he added in a quiet confession. “And not because I probably should have died in a field due to hypothermia.”

Rey’s eyes blinked slowly, staring softly into the face of the universe, as it gently gazed right back. 

She thought she understood exactly what he was saying at this very moment—listening to the soft thump of her own heart. With Ben stretched out beside her and the world moving around her in the quiet night.

“I’m afraid to die,” she admitted softly. He had shared something with her, she figured she could return the confession. “Like... one day I could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’ll never get to do all of the things I wanted to do and everything will just be… over.”

Ben was silent for a few moments.

“I think I’m more afraid of watching someone I love die,” he shifted a little on the grass. She couldn’t see his movement, just hear it. “When you die, do you really know it? I mean, you’re dead, right? But when someone you love dies, you’re just stuck with that. For the rest of your life.”

She thought about the people she loved most. Cassian and Jyn. Kaydel, Rose, Ben. Mr. and Mrs. Solo… Finn, Armie, Paige, Poe… 

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “I think you’re right. That probably is way worse.” Sitting up, she tucked her legs closer to her body for warmth and rubbed at her arms. 

Ben looked down at her from under his chin.

“Are you cold?”

“A little.”

He sat up too, his hair spiky in the back. “Do you want to go back?”

“Not yet,” she smiled gently. His lips pulled up a little at the ends too. 

He tugged at the sleeve of his black hoodie, shrugging out of it. His undershirt caught it on the lift up, exposing the skin of his stomach. She had seen it so many times before, and yet, tonight felt like it could have been the first time all over again. It sent a spark of excitement streaking up her spine. He passed the sweatshirt to her. It was unbelievably warm as she slid her arms into the sleeves, instant comfort flowing through her. 

“You won’t be cold?” She pulled the hood up over her hair, secretly praying she looked somewhat attractive in doing so.

Ben shook his head, his eyes held to hers. They looked soft, black, and glossy; beautiful in the moonlight. Somehow, it made  _ her _ feel beautiful. 

“Looks good on you,” he said kindly. 

Her cheeks heated as she tucked her chin in a little, with a tiny skeptical huff. “You probably can’t even see me.” 

“I see you,” he said, pointedly. 

And that made her heart involuntarily erupt into a million little fluttering pieces. Unleashing to spread throughout her body, beating against her skin from the inside out. 

Her hopes rose, fueled by adrenaline and dopamine. She was probably being very, very stupid. But it was now or never. 

“Ben,” she breathed, riding high on the twinkling night, the whispered wind, and the tickling grass. The universe felt like it was singing through her heart. “Will you kiss me?”

Ben’s forehead furrowed.

“What?” he responded, tonelessly.

Rey imagined that free-floating magical stars crashing to the earth sounded a lot like broken glass. Maybe the shattering of a vase. Or a heart.

The wind giggled in her ear and the grass felt like an unseen spider tap-dancing across her skin. 

What a fool she was. 

“I mean,” he added quickly, higher-pitched, as he shifted nervously. “I didn’t think you—that you liked— uh, sure. Yes.” Nodding, as if making a confirmation to himself, he shifted closer to her, letting out a deep, shaky breath. “Yes,” he said again, more firmly. 

Rey’s chest tingled and warmed with excitement. She smiled, the joy of his answer nearly levitating her from the grass.

He cleared his throat, looking her over before he scooted closer yet again. 

“Okay,” he whispered quietly, his eyes moving from hers, to her mouth, then up again. Rey’s stomach sparked as he leaned in closer, his breath ghosting across her cheek. His hands gently pushed back the hood on either side of her face, and she swore she thought they might be shaking. His lips tensed as he swallowed, his eyes drifting over her face once more.

“Gonna kiss you…” his breath was sweet and warm against her lips as she closed her eyes. 

“Please,” she barely breathed out before his lips pressed against hers.

Euphoria. A feeling unmatched by anything else Rey had ever felt before.

His lips were incredibly soft. The  _ softest _ . Softer than she had fantasized, softer than she ever could have imagined. Perfectly pressured against her own in a way that made her actually  _ swoon _ . 

They moved from her mouth for a moment, as he rested his forehead to hers. 

“Is this your first kiss?” he whispered.

Briefly, she thought about lying to him. Because she didn’t want to look stupid. Like an inexperienced baby. He had probably kissed a lot of girls by now.

“Yes,” she answered quietly, honestly. 

He paused. “Mine too.”

Rey’s eyes flew open, her forehead still pressed to his, his eyes still closed. 

She was Ben Solo’s first kiss! And he was hers!

Not wanting to waste another moment, she snapped them closed again, pressing her lips back to his, her hands reaching up to gently hold the sides of his face. 

He chuckled against her mouth, his lips parting, urging hers to do so as well. She welcomed his tongue with a gentle caress of her own, her heart hovering and swooping with each gentle cycle of their mouths moving in an exploring rhythm. 

She wanted to get closer to him,  _ be _ closer to him. Her straining body in their slightly awkward sitting position was not enough. She shifted to her knees, not taking a single breath to break her mouth from his, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him against her.

He moaned slightly, fingers fanning into her hair to gently cradle her head above him, while his other arm wrapped tightly around her waist. 

They broke apart briefly, sharing smaller, quick kisses between heavy, panting breaths. 

Rey sat back slightly, surveying his face with a shy grin.

“Wow. That was…”

“Yeah…” he said, his own mouth quirked in a smile. His dark eyes sparkled in the moonlight. He bit his lip before his fingers gently pushed to the base of her scalp, guiding her back to him. To his warm, velvety mouth. 

Rey’s body hummed with delight as he leaned back, and she followed, draping herself over him. 

They could have kissed for hours—she wasn’t really sure. She was happily lost in the gift that was Ben Solo’s lips.

Eventually, when they lay side by side, their noses raw, and their faces ruddy, they gave their mouths a break. 

The sky was getting lighter, the slow threat of dawn evident on the horizon.

“Shit,” Rey cursed, tilting her head back to look at the valley scape below them. “We should really go.”

Ben hummed in agreement, but his arm wrapped around her waist, pressing her body close to his as he kissed her again. 

  
  


***

The early morning painted the world a dark shade of gray by the time they got back to Luke’s backyard. 

They walked quietly, carefully, not wanting to disturb the people asleep in their tents. Birds were already beginning to sing their morning serenades as he stood with her outside of the girls’ trailer.

Her mouth opened for him again, her gentle, sweet tongue urging movement from his own.

He couldn’t stop kissing her. Didn’t  _ want _ to stop kissing her. Would rather  _ die, _ than not kiss her. 

It was like the floodgates had opened and now all there was in the world was the coax of her lips and comfort of her mouth. 

He was in love with Rey Andor and she was letting him kiss her. What a perfect life. 

“Ben,” she breathed, her fingers twined in his hair, her body flush to his.

He didn’t want the night to end. Didn’t know what would happen from here. If this was just a one-time thing or if it could happen again and again. If they would just go back to normal when the sun rose in the sky and the rest of the world awoke or if everything had just changed.

He wished he could carry her to his bed and just lay beside her. Fall asleep with his arms around her and his face buried in her hair. 

Humming, he broke away. 

“Okay, goodnight. For real this time,” he hushed, smiling.

“Good morning actually,” she whispered, smiling back, looking like the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Good morning then,” he kissed her forehead, his hands drifting down to hold hers. Backing away, his fingers clung to hers until their arms were nearly raised. Finally when they broke apart, he kept going, walking backward for a few steps, not wanting to take his eyes off of her.

She blushed, shoulders raising as she snuggled deeper in his sweatshirt, turning to open the door to the trailer. 

Ben didn’t need feet to bring him back to his own sleeping space. He floated there instead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I can give you nice things. You're welcome.
> 
> The AMAZINGLY talented [@theriseofswolo](https://twitter.com/theriseofswolo) drew the kiss scene and I want everyone to stare at it daily BECAUSE I LOVE IT SO MUCH!  
> 
> 
> [Collide- Tom Speight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDdir3xIhuw)  
> Chapter title
> 
> [Nick Cave- Nobody's Baby Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQNsSSE7IlQ)  
> Fake-out, make-out song


	8. I never liked the way it felt keepin' my hands to myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> Sorry for the long stretch in updates. Life is crazy, as I am sure all of you know. 
> 
> As always, I have to say thank you to [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) for her beta work and [JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) for always being there to help me out. If there are any mistakes it's totally my fault because I can never leave things alone. 
> 
> **Triggers for underage naughtiness and bullying/slut-shaming in this one.

Rey’s sophomore year started with Jyn grinning ear to ear at her and pushing a small gift bag toward her across the tiled kitchen island. 

Rey frowned down at the bag featuring a Boston Terrier wearing red sunglasses, with its tuft of purple tissue paper poking out of the top, before raising her silent, questioning eyebrows.

“It’s a first day of school present. Go ahead, open it!” Jyn encouraged, hiding her curved smile behind her coffee mug.

Rey’s hand slipped in past the paper and her fingers curled around something smooth, rectangular. Pulling it out, she was greeted by her own reflection on a sleek, obsidian surface. 

A cell phone! And, like, a nice one. Not even a hand me down.

“Thank you,” Rey whispered, turning the electronic over in her hands to examine the rose gold back. “It’s so pretty!” she laughed, a little humored by her own awe of such a simple thing.

“I thought it was time. I can’t have my baby being the weirdo kid who doesn’t know how to meme or Snapchat or… whatever the kids are doing these days,” Jyn joked, reaching forward to take it from Rey’s hands and fire it up with a press to the power button. 

“I know what memes are, Mom,” Rey laughed, as Jyn handed it back and Rey watched the start-up notifications flash across the screen. “People are really into TikTok, but I want an Instagram account to follow some designers…”

“Well, just remember, don’t tell details about yourself to people you don’t know and for the love of God, if you take a nude selfie, don’t put your face in it.”

“Mom!” Rey guffawed, shocked. 

Jyn shrugged. “It had to be said. Use your brain,” she leaned slightly over the counter, finger pointed. “Most importantly,” she continued, her tone threatening. “I want all of the best cat and dog videos to be sent immediately to me. Understand?”

Rey nodded with a grin. 

An hour later, she jumped into the backseat of Ben’s car, as it sat idling in the Solo’s driveway. 

Mrs. Tico had taken an administrative job in the school’s office, much to Rose’s dismay. Rose broke the news to Kaydel and Rey nearly in tears, mourning the loss of her school social life and something as simple as their unsupervised rides each morning. Leaving just Ben, Kaydel, and Rey in Ben’s car this year, now that Paige was attending Corellia University. 

Kaydel twisted to look back at her from the passenger seat. Half her hair was pinned into two, cute little cinnamon buns on the top of her head, the rest of her golden hair flowing over her shoulders in waves. She had a thin black ribbon around her neck as a choker. 

“I love that top, Rey! Did you make it?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, a little breathless from her sprint down the stairs and across the driveways. She pulled the skirt of her oversized denim tunic away from her body, looking down at it appreciatively. “I think it came out okay.” That morning she had paired it with simple black leggings, a borrowed pair of Jyn’s combat boots, and a belt cinched around her waist. 

She reached into her school bag, fishing out her new cell phone to hold up to show Kay, as Ben shifted the car into reverse. 

His eyes met hers briefly as he turned, one arm stretched out to Kaydel’s headrest, to get a better view of the back window—and perhaps her. 

Rey flashed him a quick, shy smile, and the corners of his mouth turned up warmly.

Ugh, that mouth. 

That mouth she had thought about a lot over the ten whole agonizing days since it last touched hers. 

Her parents left Luke's farm early on the Monday morning of the holiday weekend. Unbeknownst to them, dragging their sleep-deprived daughter out of bed merely a few hours after she had actually gotten to bed—in an attempt to avoid holiday weekend traffic.

Then it was last minute school shopping, her final week working at the movie theater, and general bullshit that got in the way.

Then it seemed like every time she and Ben were finally alone, someone would barge in and ruin the chance for another kiss. 

Poe with a suggestion for Phas’ or Paige’s replacements in the band.

Mr. Solo needing Ben’s help in the yard.

Kaydel shrieking that Ben was a rat-faced fuckwad because he put a fake cockroach under a can of hairspray in the bathroom.

Mrs. Solo reminding him his college application was going to expire.

She nearly let out a shrill _scream_ when Armie popped up out of nowhere, asking them if it was too soon to buy Breyla a birthstone pendant.

It was like the universe was playing a cruel and unjust joke on her. She wanted to kiss Ben Solo again—a lot—and she was fairly certain, with all of his longing looks, both to her eyes and her mouth—that Ben wanted to kiss her again too. 

Kay plucked the phone from her hand, looking at it with envy. 

“It’s the new one too,” she sighed dramatically. “Do you think Jyn and Cassian will adopt me?” Immediately, she started to thumb away at the screen, her tongue peeking out from the corner of her raspberry painted lips. 

She handed it back to Rey, with both her and Ben’s phone numbers added. Heat instantly crept up Rey’s neck at the sight of Ben’s name on the screen. 

She wondered if she would have the courage to text him? Something casual maybe? Like: _hey, thanks for the ride to school 👍,_ or _hey do you still watch that zombie show? Maybe we could watch it together sometime?_ Or _HEY KISS MY MOUTH YOU GIANT DIPWAD!_ You know, friendly—to the point. 

They parked in the back lot of the school, and Rey briefly took an extra second to drop the phone back into the pocket of her book bag. Beside her, the car door opened. It startled her and she peered up to see Ben standing on the other side of the window frame.

Shouldering her bookbag, she slid out of the car with a bashful smile, curling a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Thank you.”

He nodded, closing the door. His hand very gently landed on her lower back as she walked forward, passing him.

It was something so small, that momentarily stopped her world from turning. 

For the second year in a row, Finn was in her homeroom and her locker mate. She flashed him a huge grin and hugged his shoulders tightly. It had been a few weeks since she had last seen him at the movies and she had missed his contagious positivity. 

He hurriedly typed his number into her cell phone under the desk as the teacher began roll call. 

They actually had a few classes together this year, some they even shared with Rose and Kaydel, too. Even better, she only had one class with Snap Wexley, and he never even made eye-contact with her once. Seemed like it was sizing up to be a good year!

Sadly, though, she didn’t see Ben for the entire day. Not a single glimpse or pass by in the hallways. That was disappointing.

It wasn’t until she was seated on the bus for home, with Rose cheerily chatting beside her, giddily sharing that she had three classes with Finn this year, that Rey looked across the soccer field to where the track team was beginning to assemble and warm up.

Ben, a co-captain in his senior year, was in his uniform—a matching blood-red tank and shorts combo with the head of a white shrieking eagle across his chest. He was casually stooped in a lunge as he talked to Poe, the other co-captain on the team, both their uniforms boasting matching c’s on the shoulder. 

Right beside them, Kandri Corrick was bent at the waist in a far too obvious position to actually be a useful stretch. 

“When did Kandri join the track team?” Rey spat out, unintentionally interrupting her friend. 

“Huh?” Rose turned to follow Rey’s line of sight to the offset field. “Oh…”

In the row ahead of them, Kaydel loudly huffed into her seat, tossing her backpack carelessly to knock against the metal side of the bus. 

“You guys want to come to my house after school? We can do homework and get a swim in before my Dad closes the pool this weekend,” her eyes also drifted up to the field, following Rey and Rose’s gazes. 

Kandri flirtatiously swayed side to side in a shoulder stretch, smiling up at Ben. Ben who was tugging his hair into a man-bun to keep it out of his eyes, his triceps looking biteable in the act, face perfectly expressionless. 

“My God, could she thirst after him any harder?” Kaydel grumbled, rolling her eyes. “I told him after he danced with her at prom that I’d never forgive him if he asked her out.”

A streak of panic shot straight through Rey’s gut.

“They danced at prom?” she asked, weakly. Did… did Ben maybe actually like Kandri too? He never seemed to pay her much mind, from what Rey could recollect, but— 

“Yeah, but I think Ben would have rather shaved his own head than do it. She probably guilted him into it,” Kaydel said flippantly, with a shrug, as Rey’s secret hope of anything happening between her and Ben again flickered a little. “Anyway, my house, yes?”

  
***

The first practice of the year went off without a hitch. 

Normally he would have showered in the locker room and changed back into his clothes from earlier in the day. But normally he didn’t have a 5’3” shadow he almost crushed numerous times that he was eager to get away from before he took a wrong step and turned her toes to dust. 

Kandri seemed very sweet and Ben almost felt a little guilty about her fairly obvious crush on him. Not like he could force himself to reciprocate a crush for someone that simply didn’t exist, but he had a unique understanding of the hurt of unrequited feelings.

When practice ended, he was shouldering his gym bag, making plans with Poe to head back to his house, when she appeared, again, right beside him. Like a fucking silent blonde ninja.

“Any plans after practice?” she asked brightly, tossing a towel over her shoulder, her smile wide and friendly. 

Overly friendly people put Ben on edge. 

“Nothing big just headed home for a swim probably,” he said, turning in the direction of the parking lot. 

A trickle of sweat threatened to drip into his eye, so he lifted the hem of his shirt to his brow without thought and immediately regretted it when Kandri’s eyes zipped to his stomach, her eyebrows leaping up to the terrycloth sports headband across her forehead.

“Holy shit! You’ve got a freaking eight-pack!” she all but shrieked, causing a stifled chuckle from Poe as he strapped his gym bag across his chest. 

“Oh man, you know what really goes well with an eight-pack? Big Kosher _beef_ sausages,” Poe managed to say with a straight face. Kandri frowned, obviously clueless to Poe being the world’s biggest jackass who thought he was funny. “You guys were talking about beer, right?” he asked innocently, hardly able to keep the ghost of a smile from his lips.

“No, I was saying Ben is ripped!” Kandri laughed, her face still scrunched a little, betraying her confusion. “Where did you get beer from that?”

“Hmm, I dunno, weird. Anyway, you know what else you probably have if you have a washboard stomach like Solo’s? A long, hard—”

“ _Do you want to fucking walk home?_ ” Ben snapped.

“—workout routine,” Poe finished, his eyes practically glittering with delight. “Don’t be embarrassed, Ben. You’ve earned a little bit of vanity for all that hard work.” 

They would never find his body. Digging a six-foot hole would be an excellent workout.   
  
Kandri walked back towards the school with them and Poe sent a cocked eyebrow Ben’s way over her shoulder. Ben sternly ignored him.

Eight-foot hole. Just to be safe.

“A swim sounds awesome. My parents already closed our pool for the season. Which sucks, ‘cause it’s still pretty hot, for September,” she said casually. “I was actually thinking about stopping to get ice cream on the way home… if you maybe wanted to join?”

“Um,” Ben began stupidly, feeling his face flood with heat, seeping up to stain the tips of his ears. Over her shoulder, Poe’s teeth were dug into his bottom lip, causing it to nearly disappear. “You know, my mom would kill me if I ruined my dinner…”

God, he was so lame.

“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, coming to a stop, looking off to the school, dejected slightly. 

It made Ben feel like a jerk and he typically wasn’t worried about being a jerk. So that was odd. 

“Well, maybe another time,” she said, flashing him a smile with a shrug. “See you guys!” The cheeriness was back, as she gave them a little wave and headed back towards the school.

Poe at least waited until they got into Ben’s car before he opened his sinkhole of a mouth again.

“Duuude! She is _after_ that genoa!”

“For fuck’s sake Poe, stop talking about my dick in salami terms!” Ben shouted, starting the car. 

Poe cackled, rolling down his window to let out some of the end-of-track-practice-teen-boy funk and let in the early autumn air.

“Never! Do you even know how much Google research I have done? Do you have _any_ idea how many types of sausages there are out there?”

“No. Worry about your own breakfast weenie.”

“Oh ho ho… do I need to make a _sister_ joke here?” Poe questioned as if pondering out loud. “I won’t, out of love and respect for my sweetest darling—”

Ben straight snorted at that, his smile growing as they pulled out of the school parking lot.

“—who would probably lob my perfectly adequate bratwurst off if she heard about it. But just know… I could have. I could have made that joke.”

“Congratulations on only being a little bit of an asshole for once.”

When they got to his house, the girls were in the pool. Thank God. 

Rey had gotten a new bikini that summer, a flowered purple halter top with high-waisted striped bottoms that taunted him in his dreams at night. He honestly wasn’t sure which part he liked better, the top, the bottom, or the golden skin in between. But tonight, for whatever reason, she was wearing a different one. Dark green, with skinny little shoulder straps that showed the contrast of skin tone from its predecessor over the past summer months.

Ben wanted to taste those tan lines. 

He wanted to fucking kiss her again but for whatever stupid reason, that hadn’t happened yet. It seemed like it was impossible to find himself alone with her. 

Tonight, he was determined to change that. 

The water was perfect when he and Poe dove in. After floating around and making casual conversation, they decided to play a game of volleyball. 

“Me and Rey against you three,” Ben declared, as he and Poe stretched the net across the surface of the pool.

Rey pulled her wet hair into a sloppy drenched bun on the top of her head with a grin and a tint of pink to the tops of her pretty dotted cheeks.

“You have a lot of faith in me,” she joked. 

“C’mon, sweetheart, we got this,” he teased with a wink. A visible shiver slid through her body at his words.

Oh yeah, he was definitely going to try to kiss her again tonight.

It was hard to not get competitive. Especially when Poe was such a lousy cheat who made up calls as he went. Poor Rose caught a face-full of splashes from the ball a couple of times due to her head and shoulders being so close to the water’s surface. He and Rey were mostly in the deep end, which certainly made it a little bit harder to play. Stationed on the slope that deepened the floor of the pool, Rey slipped a few times powering up for a jump, only to gurgle under the surface of the water and reemerge laughing each time. 

They lost, but it was worth all the passes of brushed limbs, and her legs clamped on his torso, as she perched herself on his back for a power serve over the net. 

“Rose,” his mother called out from the kitchen window. “Your mom called, she wants you to head home. Rey, Poe, should I set you two places at the table for dinner?”

Poe looked at Kaydel, who shrugged.

“Yeah, Mrs. Solo, let me just call my dad to let him know.” 

“I’ll stay,” Rey called out, looking back at Ben as the others moved to make their way out of the pool.

The speed of Ben’s heart picked up just slightly, his stomach temporarily weightless with excitement. With hope.

Rose tipped her head back with a groan, her shoulders dipping below the water. 

“My Auntie is coming over for dinner tonight. She’s literally the meanest person on the planet,” she grumbled, wading her way through the water to the shallow end steps. 

“Benjamin, make sure that net is put away before you step foot in this house,” his mother warned, then snapped the kitchen window shut again. 

“I’ll help,” Rey offered quietly, dropping into the water to swim towards the end of the net at the opposite side of the pool. 

“Okay,” he looked up at Poe, Kaydel, and Rose as they toweled themselves off, chatting obliviously. He wished they’d hurry the hell up and get out of there! 

Pulling the net and pole out of its holster, he turned it to lay flat against the surface of the water, Rey following suit. He began to roll it up, perhaps a little slower than normal, waiting for the rest of the group to _leave_. 

“See you guys tomorrow!” Rose said with a high wave of her hand, as she hurried out of the pool fence gate.

Rey twisted to wave goodbye, her attention no longer on him as he picked up his rolling pace, walking across the distance of the pool. Poe and Kay slipped into the house, as Rey watched over her shoulder. 

She jumped slightly when she turned back and he was standing right before her. His hands gently took the netted pole from hers, as she stared up at him, awestruck. Ben wrapped the net in the velcro strings to fix it in a bundle, then tossed it onto the concrete behind her with a wet smack. 

The water lapped against the pool liner as he brought his hand back, gently running a single fingertip down the length of her arm. The sky was painted in brilliant streaks of pink and purple, the hue of the sinking sun painting her wet skin a beautiful shade of rosewood. There was a nip in the air that bit at their skin, causing prickles of matching goosebumps down their limbs. It made the pool feel like bathwater.

Nervously, his eyes briefly shot up to the sliding door, illuminating the occupants of the kitchen, completely unaware or interested in anything currently happening in the pool. 

The downward drift of her touch, feather-light, from the curve of his shoulder down to his inner elbow made him shudder, instantly bringing his attention back to her. 

He smiled slightly, and she gave a smile back.

Lowering his head, he watched her eyes flutter closed as he gently placed a soft kiss to her lips. Solid enough, nothing scandalous.

He pulled his head back to look into her eyes, his insides yearning, wild, and restless. Needing the assurance that it was okay to continue, that he had read her correctly.

They opened dreamily, their soft, pretty irises shining green and gold. His hand moved up to cradle her jaw, tilting her face further to him before he descended again, pressing his mouth to hers with more confidence this time. She opened her own to him, her hands gently landing on his chest.

The softest of squeaks sounded in her throat when he shifted down and back, below the eye-line of the kitchen, gently pulling her with him. Ben thought that he could live off that sound. It made him want to know what other noises he could coax from her.  
  
Her body curled around his, buoyant and weightless beneath the water. Her arms circled his shoulders, her legs around his hips, as she kissed him deeper. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he marveled in how they could nearly encase her entirely. 

This dangerous, delicate, and beautiful girl. 

Her mouth broke from his after twisting up into a smile.

“Finally,” she whispered as if relieved.

Leaning back, Ben grinned. Finally, indeed. He looked up at her still held above him in his hands.

“Let’s not make 10 days a habit.”

For the rest of his life, he would remember the smile that spread over her face before she leaned down to kiss him again. 

***

  
For Halloween, Rose suggested they dress up as the Power Puff Girls. Rey had never seen a single episode of the cartoon, but it was an easy costume design for the last minute idea, so it was what won. 

Only a handful of people actually knew who they were, but that was fine. They took some pictures that came out pretty good, despite the ridiculous, distracting, and _enormous_ red bow she had strapped to her head all day. 

A bow that Ben murmured was cute, before sliding it back in her hair, as he pulled her closer, tucked away from prying eyes in an alcove behind the school—against one of the gym doors 

This…happened a lot.

Standing in the Solo’s kitchen. The question: the trail of his knuckles down the back of her neck. The answer: her fingers ghosting over the back of his hand. A tilt of her face, her lips, ready for his.

In his car. The rain beating against the windows during a morning thunderstorm when Kaydel stayed home with a cold and Rey sat in his front seat. 

“Well…” he said, the car started, but not moving. The slow drift of her fingers ignited chills throughout her body as she watched them move over the back of his hand, resting on the gear shift. 

“Well…” she repeated. 

His eyes flit to the dashboard.

“We’ll be late.”

“I know,” she replied, unable to look anywhere but at his mouth. 

He couldn’t unlock his seat buckle fast enough to get to her. 

It was worth a tardiness warning. 

If there was an opportunity to get her lips to Ben’s, she would take it. Ben seemed equally as enthusiastic. 

They had almost gotten caught once. Rey pressed against Ben’s car, with his fingers in her hair, narrowly missing Poe and Kaydel coming home from a date. 

And sometimes they took risky chances—in her living room, with Jyn and Cassian right in the kitchen. She couldn’t help it! He was supposed to be “tutoring” her in Algebra, as they sat, shoulder leaning into shoulder, before an open book on the floor. His nose nudged into her hair and he placed a small, sweet kiss to the shell of her ear.

On the floor where his hand rested, she stroked the inner curve between his thumb and finger with her pinky. The silent question. 

He lifted his head to look towards the kitchen. 

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered, then kissed her anyway.

“How’s that Anatomy homework going in there, kids?” Cassian called out, causing them to jump apart. 

Rey blushed, curling some hair behind her ear. 

“Fine!” she called back, grinning at him bashfully, as Ben shook his head and looked down to the book, the tips of his ears poking from his black locks stained red. “And it’s Algebra, Dad.”

“Sure it is.”

“Ignore him!” Jyn laughed, the sound of the oven closing and the beep of the stovetop being shut off to follow. “Time for a break, you two, dinner is ready.” 

“You don’t have to ask me anymore,” Ben whispered, breathlessly, another time, after they had gone to the movies in a group on Indigenous People’s weekend. Rose, Paige, Poe, and Kaydel wanted to catch half-price apps at the chain restaurant across town. Rey claimed she wasn’t feeling well and he offered to drive her home. 

“I like to ask,” she murmured back before tracing her tongue along the inner rim of his bottom lip. 

That made him smirk.

“The answer will always be yes.”

She lived for these private moments between them. They were special, secret interactions only they knew about. Ones that they only wanted to share with each other. Intimate, beautiful, stolen minutes they weren’t ready to let anyone else in on just yet.

They talked about telling their friends and then almost immediately mutually expressed not wanting to.

“I don’t want to listen to Poe’s bad jokes,” Rey admitted, combing back his hair, his face tipped up to hers as she rested on his lap, with the lights off in the Solo’s backyard. 

“I don’t want to hear my sister’s snide remarks or answer her nosey questions,” he confessed, his warm palm rubbing addicting circles over her jean-clad thigh. 

They text each other every day. Dumb stuff, typically. Silly commentary, funny memes, song recs. He said goodnight to her in the evening. She wished him a good morning, each new day.

Against the gym door, Ben crowded her further into the corner of the brick wall, groaning a little, his mouth leaving swirling, _devastating_ , wet kisses down her throat. Rey felt like a human torch, her breath heavy, her body aflame and begging for Ben’s big hand kneading at her hip to finally, openly explore other places.

“Baby,” he gasped, and that just bought a new gush of warmth, of unleashed excitement roaring through her body. Baby. He called her _baby_. “I need to stop. This is…I'm...”

She shivered when he backed away, his tongue dragging over the surface of his kiss-flushed lips, his cheeks tinted slightly with desire. His eyes were piercing, cutting right through her, hitting her somewhere deep inside where she felt weightless and aching. 

This was also happening a lot lately. The want for _more._

Her chest rose and fell heavily, her fingers still deeply entwined into the curls at the back of his skull. His gaze dropped to her mouth, as she bit at her lip, his fingertips digging into the fabric of her silly pink costume. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, and it was _heavy_. Soaked and dripping for her. Fully saturated with what was raging through his mind, his body. His lips were doing that thing they did, rubbing against themselves as he was thinking about kissing her again. 

“Can’t you skip today?” she asked, airy, hopeful. Maybe with a hint of a whine. She didn’t even know where they would go. Where they could truly be alone. But she wanted more of him. She didn’t want to give him back to everyone else yet.

Ben groaned a miserable and loathsome sound, dropping his head to her shoulder.

“Fucking regionals…”

She was about to assure him that it was fine, that they could catch up another time. That there would be plenty of other times. 

Instead, a sharp gasp killed the words in her mouth. 

Kandri stood, eyes and mouth wide, just outside the doorway recess where they were hidden. In her tack uniform, hair in its usual ponytail, a terry cloth headband across her forehead. Her body shot rigid, her eyes zinging back and forth between the two of them in their clearly precarious position. 

“S-sorry, Ben—Captain—uh, Poe was looking for you, so I said I would look—” her face was a deeper shade of red than the strawberries Rey had picked in the summer. Rey could have almost sworn there was a sheen of wetness that glossed over her eyes, before she spun around and hurriedly ran back toward the field, calling over her shoulder: “I’ll tell him you’re on the way!”

One of Ben’s hands was still pressed to the door above her head, his face turned in the direction to where her classmate ran off. 

“Shit,” he sighed heavily.

“Ben,” her tone immediately brought his attention back to her, his expression concerned. As if reading the worry that was already coiling in her brain, he gave her a reassuring smile, lifting her chin in the cradle of his fingers.

“Don’t worry about that. Worry about me attempting to lead track practice with a raging hard-on.”

A laugh blurted out of her, and she tried to stop it with the press of her fingers over her mouth. Ben pushed off the door behind her, grinning and shifting, with a playful hissed inhale between his teeth.

“You should look away… or don’t,” he joked, his hand reaching into his shorts and rooting around. 

Rey’s heart momentarily stopped. His hand emerged empty, his palms held up, as he turned to the side.

Rey felt like her face was probably billowing smoke at this point. 

“Good?”

Her eyes glanced down quickly, before giving him a slight head nod. 

He stepped forward, planting a quick, rough kiss to her lips. 

“Text me later,” and then with that, he headed toward the track field. 

Leaving her braced against the fire engine red door of the gymnasium that undoubtedly matched her face, dressed as a disheveled _Blossom_ , on weak and shaky legs. 

  
***

Rey decided to join the theater program’s costuming department for their annual winter production. She needed to build her after school activities with further hopes for college applications. 

Every year, the theater department put on two performances: Shakespeare at the beginning of the new year and a musical in the Spring.

This year, they were doing a performance of _Much Ado About Nothing_. 

Greer Sonnel was cast as _Beatrice_ and Joph Seastriker got the part of _Benedick_ , which was kind of a given considering they were both 4-year theater majors in their last years. The real upset for some of the junior girls was the casting of Kandri Corrick for the supporting role of _Hero_. 

“That’s bullshit,” one of them, assigned to the minor role of _Ursula_ hissed, as Rey measured her waistline, and jotted it down to her cast profile with a golfers pencil.

Rey didn’t know much about Shakespeare, but she liked the pattern in which the cast spoke while delivering their lines. The director had decided to set this production in 1900, so Rey often found herself after school in the costume room, surrounded by rows of white chiffon and lace, cotton, and pale silk sashes. Amongst piles of straw hats, and a huge assortment of fake gardenias and big, blooming roses. 

It was extra fun because Finn was on the tech team for lighting. A lot of times, she would keep him company in the light booth, while she hand-sewed ribbons and flowers onto costumes, and he manned the spotlight. 

Her heart hurt for her friend sometimes. His pure and unblinking adoration for Rose, yet his inability to do anything about it.

“I would lose my mind if my parents were that strict,” he whispered one night. Below them, across the length of the auditorium, Beatrice and Benedick bantered, illuminated by the stage lights.

“I know,” Rey replied with a sigh, her chin held in her hand as she watched them move across the stage. “They just want what’s best for her. My mom says everyone has their own ideas on what it means to be a good parent. And Rose says that it’s not that they don’t trust her, but more that they don’t trust other people.”

Finn made a little grunt, in agreement.

“Yeah, I get that. My mom feels the same way. 'The world is a different place for black boys, Finn.' I have heard that my entire life,” he sighed heavily, raking a hand down his face. “But I just want to do something normal with her, you know? Take her bowling, or out for ice cream. I want to ask her to be my girlfriend and to have her say yes, and not hide it!” 

Rey’s face showed her surprise at his slip-up and Finn sucked his lips into his mouth, his eyes wide.

“I mean… I haven’t,” he amended quickly in a rushed whisper. “But when I do, that’s what I want.”

Grinning, Rey nodded, bumping her shoulder with his, teasingly. 

Rey liked being in the dark and quiet school while rehearsals stretched on. She liked getting to know some of the upperclassmen as they chatted with her while she helped dress them for their final fittings. 

Kandri had been noticeably icy towards her since the incident with her and Ben in the alcove behind the school. Rey hoped the tension would ease a little bit over their time working together, but that didn’t seem likely when Kandri only answered her in short, clipped responses, even when Rey asked mundane questions, like where she wanted a bow placed. 

“On your left or right side?” Rey asked, holding it against her left shoulder, then switching it to Kandri’s right.

The smaller girl wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

“Who cares?” she grumbled, her pale blue eyes lifting to the ceiling.

Rey was about to explain to her, through gritted teeth, that it should be placed where it would be seen the most, depending on her scene blocking, but Kandri was called back to the stage before she could. 

The night before Thanksgiving break, Rey was alone in the costume room when Finn came in, somewhat embarrassed and fidgety. 

“Can you help me out?” he asked, lifting the bottom of his t-shirt to reveal the fly of his pants wide open. “Damn thing won’t stay up anymore. I knew I should have retired these dope babies this year.”

Finn had an eclectic fashion sense. Often going for wild, bold colors and unusual patterns and textures. These current pants were burgundy and corduroy. 

It was an easy enough temporary fix though. Rey grabbed a safety pin, and motioned him closer, dropping to her knees after placing the pillow she used to kneel on for making costume adjustments to the floor. 

She threaded the sharp-tipped needle through the hole in the pull of his zipper, then pinned it to the fabric of his pants. 

“Easy peasy,” she said cheerfully, looking up at him. 

From the door, a throat cleared. 

Kandri stood, arms crossed, jaw fixed. Her hard expression contrasting her floor-length, pretty, and soft Edwardian white dress and pink sash along her waist. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” she said, with a hint of snark to her voice. “But we’re starting the final run of the night and Finn is needed in the lightroom.”

It was then Rey realized she was on her knees, her face nearly level with Finn’s crotch.

Embarrassed, she scurried up quickly, as Finn, who seemed not at all affected or even aware of Kandri’s chilly demeanor, rushed out the door to get back to his post.

“His zipper broke,” Rey offered lamely, for some reason massively embarrassed over something so innocent. 

Kandri just rolled her eyes and walked away, her heels clicking on the hallway floor. 

Rey sighed and plopped herself on the floor with a frown.

***

  
Ben was pretty sure that he was having the absolute best dream of his lifetime.

He wasn’t actually on Rey's bed. He was actually snoring loudly in his own bed, probably drooling while porn still played on his laptop.

His fingers weren't really brushing through her hair as her delicious, addictive mouth moved against his while needy little whines mewled out of her throat. He was probably grunting and farting in his sleep.

She wasn’t dressed in the most adorable matching set of pajama pants and tank top featuring a print of spaceships and galaxies and not wearing a bra. Her perfect little tits weren't pushed against his chest as she kissed him stupid. Those long and lean legs of hers weren’t bracketing his lap as he tried to keep his itching palms from just moving to her breasts and _squeezing_. 

Because this is all too perfect to be real. It had to be a fucking dream.

Per usual, he had sent her a text message to say goodnight. It was the last thing he did every night, usually with his head on his pillow.

But tonight was different. 

Tonight, instead of sending him a 'goodnight' back or a heart or a sleepy-face emoji, she sent him a picture. 

Of her body in those fucking pajamas. The hem of the tank top lifted just _so_ —the gentle hollowed cave between her hipbone and stomach shadowed by the band of her pajama pants.

There was no going back to sleep.

Maybe it was the call of his stupid, common-sense-draining teenage dick, or the irrational desire to be touching her since he didn’t get to see her after school due to her play rehearsal, but whatever it was that compelled him, Ben was out of bed and through the basement window before he could stop himself. He didn’t even put shoes on. 

There was a small deck outside of Rey’s window. It was mostly a visual thing, but it couldn’t be _that_ hard to get to.

It really wasn’t. Just a precarious pull up from the railing of Andor’s front porch, a little bit of a climb onto the trellis, and then a wide stretch for footing outside of her window.

It wasn’t really the climb itself that was the problem. It was the fact that Ben was terrified of heights. 

His legs felt liquid by the time he tapped on the glass pane as he clung to the decorative railing outside of her window for dear life. 

She swept the curtain aside and jumped back, managing not to scream at the unexpected sight of him hanging there like a gigantic, scared squirrel.

“Are you _insane?_ ” she hissed, opening her window and reaching out to help him inside as he trembled and clamored towards her with the legs of a newly born colt. 

He slipped through her window, clutching to her arms, his hands involuntarily trembling as he took a few deep breaths and she stared at him with owl eyes. 

“Are you okay?” she whispered, assuredly rubbing his arms as he continued to shake and take deep breaths. 

“I didn’t really think that out as much as I should have,” he joked self-consciously with a small smile.

“Ben,” she kept her voice low, quiet. “What are you _doing_ here?” Her eyes darted to her bedroom door, the house beyond it still soundless. 

That was the question, wasn’t it? What _was_ he doing there?

Her pretty mouth was open slightly as her breath moved her chest in quiet little pants. 

So he kissed her. Because fuck it. The scariest part was already behind him.

There was a soft moan that left her when he reached down, his hands landing over the small of her back, pressing her closer. Her kiss intensified, fevered. His heart jumped when she reached back and slid one of his hands lower, cupping it over her backside. 

Her butt. She was letting him touch her butt. Wow. 

Ben broke his mouth from hers momentarily as his fingers dug in for a squeeze, his awed breath gushing out against her lips.

She kissed over his cheek, down to his throat, as his head fell back slightly, mouth open. 

This… was something that had been building up over the last few months. 

Each kiss became more intense. Each makeout was more heated than the last. Each separation felt like there were thousands of tiny strings between them, making it harder and harder to pull apart.

Sex was... not exactly on the table. They weren’t even officially “official”, but he was confident that that was exactly they were going to be soon. He was nervous, yet excited, about this slowly budding part of their growing relationship. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel rushed.

“Do you... want to sit down?” she whispered against his throat. 

There was only one place to sit that wasn’t a one-person bench or a too-small wooden desk chair. One place currently covered in rumpled baby-blue bed sheets and a duvet of cornflower daisies. 

_Oh, God._

“Okay,” he whispered, as she backed away and gently took his hand, leading him to her bed. Ben sat, never looking away from her as he sank down onto her mattress and she stepped between his legs. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered before bowing to kiss him again. Her fingers dragged across his scalp as her mouth worked, teasing him, pleasing him in overwhelming ways.

He wasn’t wearing underwear beneath his sweatpants and that was not helping the swiftly hardening problem arising under the soft fabric. 

Rey crawled right onto his lap, her mouth never leaving his as she settled on top of his thighs.

“Rey,” he croaked, as his fingers tightened on the sheets in his grip, the brush of her body against the most straining and sensitive part of him nearly devastating. It was getting hard to breathe. It was getting hard to think or do anything really. His entire body fucking hungry for more contact. Wanting to feel everything.

“Touch me,” she panted softly against his mouth. “I want you to touch me, Ben.”

How was it possible to feel enraptured and terrified at the same time?

His hands flew to her thighs for a squeeze. Her muscles tightened below his palms as she gently rolled her hips forward, and then back.

_Fuck._

“Higher,” it slipped from her lips, brushing at his, clouding his brain. Turning it to thick, stupid fog.

He slid his hands up to her waist, her bare skin between the gap in her pajamas smooth and warm. 

“Higher,” a breathless, gentle whine this time. A shudder slipped through his body, as she pressed the crux of her spread legs against him again. He wanted to press her down harder on himself, maybe even push up into her. 

Ben let out a strained breath, trying to calm down as his hands slid further up. Past the slope of her waist, up her gently bellowing ribcage, to finally land on the softest parts of her sweetly flushed flesh. 

Rey let out a hot sigh against his mouth, the tender waves of her hips pausing momentarily. 

Ben licked his lips nervously, testing the weight of her breasts in his palms. He was at a little bit of a loss as to what to do next, considering there weren’t a lot of pornographic references when it came to hitting the second base. 

“Pinch my nipples,” Rey gasped.

A blessing really. Ben could easily take direction from her. 

He rolled the hardened peaks between his fingers, the soft, strained breaths escaping from Rey drawing a small, prideful smile to his lips. The shifting of her hips began again, and Ben groaned, the intense attention to his groin slamming him back down with a wave of euphoria. 

Rey sat back, looking down at him, her face so soft and fucking beautiful it made him want to just pull her back to kiss her again. 

He watched as his own hands continued to work, tweak, and kneed below the tight fabric of her tank top. 

Then, quite swiftly, the top was gone in a flash of fabric and the fall of brown hair, and it was just his hands on her body. Her breasts. 

Small, perfectly rounded pale things with little blushing nipples. The left one had a singular freckle, dotted beside it. Small, cute, _world-shaking_.

“Holy shit,” Ben breathed out in awe. 

Rey’s cheeks were dark pink, her lips kiss-stained and swollen from his own mouth as she bit her lower lip.

“You like them? They’re not too—”

“I love them,” Ben moaned, leaning forward, pressing a kiss to that freckle, before sucking her nipple right into his mouth. A low, shuddering breath shook her body and it made Ben’s ignite. 

He wanted to grind himself against her. To paw at these glorious tits, cover them with his mouth, and make them glisten from his spit. He wanted to know the noises she made when he touched her in new places no one else ever had.

His body… had other plans.

Rey’s breast in his mouth, the heat of her, the sound of her, was just too much. 

In a completely and uncontrollable wave-break of body-numbing bliss and brain-shrieking horror, Ben came. Right in his pants. His whole body tensed, his mouth breaking from Rey’s nipple as it hung open, in a silent scream. 

“Shiiit _shitshitshitshit_ ,” he hissed as Rey’s movements came to a stop and his whole body felt like it went up in a searing flare of embarrassment. “Oh, _fuck_ —I’m sorry, _fuck_ ,” he spat, the heels of his hands digging into his eye sockets and flopping back onto her bed. He couldn't even look at her, he wished he could just evaporate into a sad little mist of shame and float out of the room. “I can’t believe that just happened,” he groaned miserably, feeling the weight of Rey gently leaving his lap.

He could take a running, flying leap out of her window now and just hope for the best.

“Um,” she said softly, causing him to lift his hands and look down towards her. Her top was back on, and she lifted her hand, offering him what looked like a shirt. “I don’t have a towel in here, but I have this? It’s pretty old, so you can use it to, um, you know…”

Ben sat up, taking the old t-shirt from her as she turned, giving him some privacy to sop up as much of his pitiful cum as he could from his stomach and the inside of his sweatpants. 

“The um, hamper is over there,” she pointed, her back still to him. 

He stood, walking over and pitching the shirt in with her other dirty clothing. When he turned back around, she was sitting on the bed, looking to the floor. He felt awkward as hell, standing there in the dark, all big and bashful, bare feet turned slightly inward, shoulders hunched as if he could make himself smaller. 

“So, ah…” he began, quietly. What exactly does one even say at a moment like this? When your first intense sexual experience ends in a loud, fat belly flop. 

“Do you want to sleepover?” Rey asked softly.

Ben stared back at her, his embarrassment still burning through his veins—absolutely gobsmacked. 

“You want me to stay?” he asked, confused. 

Her face rose up with a frown. “I mean, I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything, but—” 

He hurried back over to the bed, lifting her chin for a quick kiss. 

Rey shifted back, rearranging her covers, tucking herself closer to the wall to make room for his truthfully oversized body on her smaller bed. Ben sank down, laying on his side to face her, while she gently pulled her blanket up to cover his shoulders. Shifting down, she placed a kiss to his cheek, before snuggling into her pillow, facing him. 

She smiled. 

“Sweet dreams, Ben.”

Ben was still too mortified to sleep and he didn’t need sweet dreams, anyway. Not when he got to lay beside her and watch her sleep. 

  
***

Ben’s alarm went off at six am, and he carefully slipped out of her window with a quick kiss goodbye.

Rey went back to bed, waking up around nine, to the amazing smell of turkey and stuffing, roasting in the oven. 

With a yawn, she stretched out her arms as she came into the kitchen, where Jyn was chopping up some sweet potatoes and Cassian was reading the newspaper, with freshly wet hair, and a coffee mug at his lips. 

“Good morning,” Rey grumbled, itching at her belly with a look into the refrigerator. Was it even worth eating breakfast when they were going to have all the food in a few hours? She decided not and pulled out the hazelnut creamer Cassian liked to use.

Coffee would be a fine breakfast.

“Smells good,” she said, sitting on the barstool beside Cassian and swiping the Entertainment section from his already read pile, looking to read her horoscope and the comics. 

“You know, I’m not even American, but oh my God, I love this holiday’s food!” Jyn laughed, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

Cassian frowned for a moment, looking up from his reading.

“ _Defector-iving_ doesn’t have the same ring to it, admittedly.”

“When did you move to the states, Mom?” Rey asked, watching the cloud of cream bloom in her coffee before stirring it with a spoon. 

“When I was 18. I had big plans for the New York Punk-Rock circuit,” she laughed, leaning against the counter across from them.

Rey gasped, shocked.

“You lived in New York! Like the big city?”

Jyn nodded, amused by her reaction.

“Yep, for a little while anyway.”

“Until she met a strappingly handsome NYU grad who swept her off her feet and whisked her away to a life of blissful suburbia,” smiled Cassian, looking at Jyn like she hung the moon.

She smiled back.

“Something like that.”

Rey grinned, watching them, before reaching over to grab another section of the newspaper. She and Cassian read while Jyn continued to quietly prep for dinner. When she finished her coffee, Rey was going to start helping her with the green bean casserole. 

“Did I tell you I saw a rare bird this morning?” Cassian piped up after a little while.

Rey was almost done with both the local news section of the paper and her coffee. She hummed to let him know she was listening.

“Right on our roof, when I was coming back from my morning run.”

Rey’s breath stilled. Not raising her eyes from the print on the page as a trickle of dread rolled down her spine. 

“Since when do you care about birding?” Jyn questioned humorously, her back still to them as she faced the stove.

“I mean, this one is really rare. And big, I mean _huge_. With black feathers and a little bit of a surly attitude. I was just kind of surprised to see it outside of Rey’s window, is all…”

When Rey looked up, Cassian was looking at her, a comical little expression on his face. She breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t seem all _that_ mad.

Jyn, however, huffed a little annoyed sigh and turned, resting her back to the stove and folding her arms, spatula poking up in her hand. 

“Why can’t you just say _the thing_ , why do you need to be so vague?”

Cassian’s lips twitched. “I think its species is called,” his eyes narrowed, feigning thought. “The Great American Brood Boy...” 

“He caught Ben Solo sneaking out of my bedroom window this morning,” Rey confessed, beating him to the punch. 

Jyn’s mouth dropped open in stunned silence. She snapped it closed again with a slow nod.

“Okay… well—”

“We’re not having sex!” Rey blurted out, face heating. “I just… I like him and we kiss sometimes and I don’t know, I didn’t want him to get hurt climbing down and he had already snuck in,” she winced, looking back at them guiltily. “So I let him sleepover.”

“Permission for that would have been nice,” Jyn commented with a hint of a smirk.

Rey frowned.

“Would you have said yes?”

“Fuck no,” Cassian deadpanned.

Jyn rolled her eyes at him and shook her head.

“Here’s the thing baby,” she said, placing the spatula onto the spoon-rest on the stove and moving forward to lean over the bartop towards Rey. “When you’re ready, I trust that you will know. You know that. But for right now, you’re 15 and not on birth control. Not to mention the fact that Ben just turned 18 last week, which… if something _were_ to happen, it could get him in a lot of trouble, legally. I don’t think late-night visits and sleepovers are smart choices for either of you right now.”

Rey bit her lip, nodding. That was obviously not something she had thought about. And… admittedly, things had gotten carried away pretty quickly between them last night.

“Also, if he damages one of the gutters over the porch it’s really going to piss me off,” Cassian added.

“He means if Ben falls and hurts himself, he’s going to be very upset about it,” Jyn corrected.

“Sure, that too,” Cassian grumbled, playfully. 

“So,” Jyn began, leaning back and drumming the counter with the palms of her hands. “The doctor said we should wait until you’re at least 16 to start the pill, and that’s only four months from now. And,” she emphasized, pointedly. “That will also make the age thing a little more… legal. You think you cool it down some until then?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, and Jyn gave her a small smile, reaching out to gently pat the side of Rey’s cheek. Cassian gave her a wink, before looking back at his paper.

“Great American Brood Boy,” Rey muttered, into her mug with a grin, finishing the last bit of coffee with a shake of her head. 

“I’m a regular ornithologist, kiddo.” 

Her parents really were awesome. She was so lucky.

  
***

When they arrived at school the Monday after the long weekend, Rey was not looking forward to the Algebra test she would have to face. Even with Ben’s actual tutoring help. 

Once they were in the school, Kaydel announced having to get to her locker early and bound inside, leaving her and Ben in the chilly front hallway with the rest of the mingling students before the first bell. 

“Think you’re ready for that test?” he asked.

She couldn’t believe that the last time she had seen him, he was sleepily smiling at her from the other side of her bed in the morning. It didn’t even seem real. Like some kind of lovely day-dream.

Her eyes drifted down to his faint smile.

Or that his mouth had actually been on her boobs. And… well, that _other_ thing that happened.

Feeling herself getting warm, she looked away and nodded, fixing an assuring smile on her face. 

“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine.”

The morning bell rang and the students started to shift around them, heading to their homerooms.

“Good,” he said. Rey nodded, taking a step to move away from him before he caught her arm.

He leaned down, planting a sweet, quick kiss to her mouth. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!

Stunned, she looked up at him, eyes wide. 

“I don’t think I want to hide this anymore,” he said simply. She nodded, dumbly. “We can talk about it more later. Have a good day,” he flashed her a happy, dimpled smile, which she felt herself return.

When she got to the hallway where her locker was located, it was unusually loud. Finn greeted her with a tense grab of her upper arms, practically pushing her backward. 

“Hey, how was—Finn, what are you doing?”

He made a face, his lips frowning, his head shaking.

“You don’t really need to go down there right now.”

“What?” Rey laughed, trying to look over his shoulder. “But I do. I need my books, they’re in—”

The sentence stalled when some students shifted she saw it. Bright red over the deep green lockers. Her locker.   
  
One simple word that stopped her heart in her chest. 

_WHORE._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Buzz- Maddie Medly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NCgU8xAU7g)  
> Chapter title


	9. Turning away from the light, Becoming adult, Turning into myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? Writer's block is no joke.
> 
> BUT HERE WE ARE!! 🥳✨🎉🎊🍕 WE MADE IT!
> 
> I am super excited about this chapter for... reasons.
> 
> I always have to give thanks to the incredible[JenfysNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenfysNest) and [Ivy Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Quinn/pseuds/Ivy_Quinn) for their input and help.
>
>> Rey moaned as Ben’s hand slid in between them, impatiently bunching up the slightly wet material of her dress. He gently teased over the cotton of her panties as he kissed her favorite spot, right between her ear and jaw. 

“I don’t like sand,” he mouthed against her neck, and just like that, her panties were gone and he pushed his finger inside her as she arched her back and gasped, her fingers digging into his biceps as her shoulders pushed into the cold, wet earth. A small growl escaped from the back of his throat. “It's all coarse and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.” 

Rey frowned a little, mentally pausing while pleasure stroked at the inside of her belly. 

“Okay?” she whispered, breathlessly, before cutting herself off with a whine.

She looked up at him as he leaned back to gaze down on her, the pink-tinted moon haloing his dark hair as she reached up and cupped his cheek.

“I love you, Ben.”

They were on the beach at night. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his chest shone in the moonlight like it had been profusely oiled. His hair had grown so long, it twisted in the breeze above her. Like one of those romance novel covers she had seen in the used bookstore downtown. The ones that smelled like must and had permanent marks in the pages where they had been dog-eared for the steamy bits. 

He looked huge as he spread her legs and crawled between them, his face beautiful and soft, save a huge scar that bisected the right side of it, tearing down his neck and curling to a stop over his pectoral. 

But that was part of the risk of being a space pirate and a rogue prince, she figured. 

Her body tightened and the air gushed from her lungs as he thrust inside her, and she realized her clothing had melted away, leaving her bare in the night air.

“That's it,” he growled, making her tremble and let out another needy whine against his neck. 

Something cold and slimy slid up her belly and when she looked down, Ben’s arms had turned into octopus tentacles churning and curling in the night air and now he was wearing an eye patch.

“That’s right. Take my _thick mast_ you _whore!_ ”

Rey jumped awake. Her body in a cold sweat, the covers kicked down around her feet, and her chest heaving. It took a moment for her racing brain to settle, the vision of pirate-tentacled Ben still burned into her vision, his voice calling her a whore still ringing through her mind in a cruel echo. 

“What the fuck,” she spat into the dark room as she flopped her hand over the pounding heart in her chest. 

The neighborhood was quiet, nearly eerily so, from the heavy snowfall that blanketed the ground over the last several weeks of cold weather. It made the world seem like a giant deafened snow globe, the flakes outside falling to the ground in sheets of silent, puffy cotton. She, Jyn, and Cassian had all shoveled numerous times throughout the week, clearing both the driveway and the sidewalks every few hours to keep up with the unrelenting assault and accumulation of frozen drifts. The news had said it was going to be one of the worst winters in several years. Cassian explained to her that this was the best kind of snow for snowballs and promptly launched one across the yard to hit her in the shoulder to demonstrate. Her fingers were red and achy by the time they came back inside and Jyn put a pan on the stove to start heating milk for hot cocoa.

Rey’s stomach tickled a little from the unexpected arousal of the dream she just had, despite how weird and disturbing it was. 

Idly, she wondered if sea creature pirate porn was a thing? Probably, she figured. If furries existed. 

Twisting to reach beside her, she grabbed her phone from the small nightstand next to the bed and winced as the light from the screen stung her eyes. 

**1:25 am** the digital clock said, above a picture of her, Kaydel, and Rose. All wearing silly Christmas headbands as they leaned in towards each other with lips puckered and eyes closed under the mistletoe in the Solo’s kitchen doorway. 

She grinned, remembering how excited they were when they found the goofy white, red, and green striped stockings to wear— making their legs look like matching candy canes. 

Unlocking her phone her smile only grew wider when the wallpaper of her and Ben appeared. 

It was a selfie they had taken in private at the same party, while everyone was mingling around after dinner. Her smiling face with one eye closed, as Ben playfully kissed her cheek, his own cheek dusted with green speckles of glitter. 

It was their first picture "together" and she adored it, sometimes finding herself gazing at it mindlessly, a small, happy smile always managing to slip onto her lips. She would change her wallpaper to a picture of a galaxy scape in the morning, just in case the wrong person took a glimpse over her shoulder, but nearly every night she would switch it back to her and Ben again. 

Maybe that seemed paranoid, but after the “locker incident”, she found that she was increasingly protective of her privacy. Especially when it came to her growing relationship with Ben. She was more hesitant than ever to publicly display affection towards him, despite the heart-swelling promise the morning of “the incident” had filled her with. 

Thinking about it— the shame, the shock, the _embarrassment_ — gave her a rotting ache deep in her guts that she didn’t like at all. She couldn't imagine why anyone would have done such a horrible thing to her. Couldn’t think of a single person who disliked her so much that they would take the time to publicly deface her personal space of school property. 

Rey wasn’t popular by any means, but she was at least well-liked. It didn’t make sense for someone to do something so cruel to her. It made her brain spin trying to think of who would be so moved by their disdain for her to take such harsh action.

Just laying in bed and thinking about it gave her a buzzing uptick of anxiety. 

“It couldn’t have been for you,” Ben assured her, the night it had happened, as they sat side by side on her front porch, their legs dangling off the ledge of the railing. “Who could ever say that about you? They must have gotten the wrong locker number.”

Finn and Rose agreed as they discussed the incident at their desks the next day in History class before the bell. She had been greeted with a _wet paint_ sign hanging above the door that morning, the defacement erased from sight, but still seared into the back of her brain. 

“It’s probably the same jealous idiot that did it to me,” Kaydel said, with a roll of her eyes in the second-floor bathroom mirror. 

Rey stood beside her at the sink, watching her apply a bright mango lipstick over her pouty mouth in the shiny glass reflection. Rey looked back at her own reflection. Wavy brown hair pulled into a simple ponytail, a screen print t-shirt of Ruth Bader Ginsberg tucked into a vintage plaid skirt Jyn had gifted to her from when she was in high school. She didn’t wear make-up, not like Kay did—with fun and bold lipsticks and intense eyeshadows, inspired by Youtube tutorials. Didn’t really try to stand out with edgy hairstyles or crazy jewelry, like some of her classmates. If anything, Rey considered herself rather… simple. Unique, she supposed, but certainly not to any sort of envy-level status. Most of her clothing was homemade or from consignment and second-hand shops. 

What was there to possibly be jealous of? She just couldn’t figure it out.

It made her stomach curl. Made her skin feel tight and hot whenever she thought about the bold red paint angrily sprayed across her locker. She supposed it could have been a random act of vandalism, but then wouldn’t there have been more? Squiggling lines painted across the length of the rows, as the culprit dragged their arm behind them, leaving a streak of red destruction in their wake. 

Ben had been sweet about it though. It was fairly obvious that she was uncomfortable being affectionate and he did not push her when she clearly decided to keep their budding relationship exactly where it had been before— private and between them. 

He still opened the car door for her each morning, and with track season over, offered her rides home when she didn’t have to stay after school for theater. Usually, Kaydel was with them, but one time, when it was just the two of them, they stopped at a coffee shop before heading home, allowing themselves a little privacy in the cozy place downtown. 

Rey immediately jumped to claim a comfy, overstuffed leather loveseat, while Ben asked what she wanted before heading to the counter at the back of the shop to order. 

It was quiet there, being mid-afternoon. Only two or three other patrons, hidden behind computer screens as they typed away. No classmates, no one even close to their age. That subconsciously eased her. 

She took in the smell of sweet roasted coffee beans and the hiss of steaming milk. Looked around at the vivid abstract art hanging on the brick walls and up to the skylight, which showed off the bright blue sky on such a brisk winter day. 

She heard the low timbre of Ben’s voice as he placed his order with the barista.

“—and my girlfriend will have a vanilla chai latte.”

Rey took in a sharp breath, her heart threatening to leap from her mouth and scurry across the shop to jump in Ben’s pocket. 

_Girlfriend._

She wanted to kick her feet in the air and erupt into a fit of giggles.

Her cheeks ached a little from her grin when he made his way back to the couch, mismatched cups and saucers in each big hand as he frowned, concentrating on not spilling anything as he made his way across the creaky and weathered wood floor. He sunk into the cushion beside her once he placed the drinks down on the coffee table before them, smiling at her smile.

“What?” he asked. 

She shook her head, reaching over to curl her hand in his as it rested on his lap and placed her head against his shoulder. The bold and public show of endearment caused him to pause momentarily before his other arm lifted up to wrap around her shoulders, as they reclined back into the seat together. He placed a kiss to her hair that stoked her insides on such a frigid winter’s day.

If only she could bring herself to feel that comfortable all the time. She told herself that it would happen eventually, she just had to be patient. That all of this was still so new to her. 

She knew she was in love with him. Had been for a while, if she really thought about it. Maybe she _always_ was, even back when she thought she hated him. It was hard to say. Ben was such a constant in her life. A thread in the fabric so prominent, it almost seemed like she hardly had memories that didn’t contain him in some way. 

That year, at the Solo’s annual holiday party, they snuck away into his room, meeting in private to exchange gifts.

“How does my mom come up with this shit?” he grumbled, lifting his arm to display a dangling show of silver tinsel hanging underneath, like strips of leather from a 1970’s motorcycle jacket. Rey giggled, looking at the garland draped across his chest in a big green ‘X’ over his red sweatshirt, which had also been dotted with several small, shiny balls. Rose was picked as his sweater “decorator” for the Ugly Sweater game they played, and Rey thought she had done a fantastic job. 

Unlike her own green sweater, which had a single red felt circle on the shoulder, two popsicle sticks crossed in a ‘t’ glued to her hip, and a baby blue hand towel safety-pinned to her waist. 

“You’re Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree,” Poe said lazily, a pirouline cookie hanging out of his mouth like a cigar, apparently already over the silly game. 

Rey bitterly slapped a wrapping bow on his shoulder.

“What am I supposed to be?” he asked, chin wrinkling as he looked over to the big silver bow on his black sweater. 

“The smelly bath-bomb and shower gel set everyone rewraps to give to someone else when they forget to buy a gift,” she said, irritably, crossing her arms in front of herself.

Poe grinned.

“Look at us, so creative.”

But Rose had taken delight in wonderfully bedazzling Ben’s sweater and coating it with so much glitter, within minutes it sparkled all over his skin and in his hair.

Rey giggled when she reached up and combed her fingers through his dark waves, watching the twinkling dots catch the light as they floated to his bedroom floor. He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. It made her heart glow.

A part of her wished they could just stay down here all night, but they had to hurry, it wouldn’t be much longer before their absence would be noticed. 

She was so excited to give him his gift because she knew he was going to love it. She and Jyn had waited in line for over two hours to get a t-shirt autographed from his favorite indie artist. He did, of course, grinning ear to ear as he held it up against his chest, then scoffed, batting off the green glitter that inevitably transferred to the material.

“I’ll be finding this shit everywhere ‘til at least spring,” he groused, before picking up a wrapped box of his own. 

His entire demeanor changed as he shifted, clutching it in his hands. 

“I hope you like it,” he said, tentatively. “I-if you don’t I can just get you something else. But I think you’ll like it. It seemed like a perfect present and I think you could do a lot with it or maybe just—” he swallowed as he handed it over to her. “I’ll just… let you see.”

Rey smiled, looking down at the pattern of jingle-belled elves dancing across the paper. She sat on the basement couch, resting the box in her lap as she ripped open the paper.

Lifting the thin white lid off the sweater box, she was greeted by soft cerulean blue silk.

“It was my grandma Breha’s,” Ben explained quickly, as she lifted the delicate blue dress out of the box by its portrait neckline to hold it up before her. “I thought you could maybe do something with it or just keep it as it is. I know you like vintage stuff,” he winced a little, scratching at the back of his head, shifting again foot to foot as he rattled on. “I thought the color would look nice on you and my mom said I could have it—”

Rey stilled his words as she popped up, flinging her arms around his neck, planting him with a big kiss. 

“I love it,” she muttered against his mouth and his sigh of relief tickled her lips. 

“Good,” he kissed her back gently then, a hand reaching up to softly drift through the hair at her temple before shifting to cup the back of her neck. They kissed for just a little bit longer, Rey feeling the warmth and happiness of the holiday seeping deep into the marrow of her bones.

She almost let the words shining in her heart slip out of her mouth as he took her hand, leading her towards the stairway, but somehow managed to pull them back in as she grinned at him, with one last quick kiss before they snuck back upstairs and returned seamlessly into the ongoing party.

Or so she thought.

She grabbed a cup of punch and slid into a conversation beside Rose, who was chatting quietly with Armie, Jannah, and Uncle Lando. 

Rose smiled up at her, reaching over to brush at her cheek with a hint of a knowing smile. 

“You’ve got some glitter on your face.”

Rey blushed and dipped her grin into her cup muttering a thanks. Rose gave her a little wink. 

In bed, Rey turned to her side with a happy sigh. Her 16th birthday was coming up and she was already hoping that Ben would ask her out on a date. She had decided that if he did, she was going to very openly say yes. That she would finally make the leap into a public relationship with him. She would hold his hand, kiss him in front of everyone (except maybe Cassian), call him her boyfriend.

It scared her, to be honest, but she told herself she would do it. 

It would be incredible to know that he felt the same way, even though the reality of that had not even been so much as whispered between them. 

She felt it though—the love. She was pretty sure that he did too.

Closing her eyes, her thoughts drifted to what the future would hold for them, a happy little smile once again spreading across her face as she settled back into sleep.

  
  
  


***

  
  


“Honestly, you two,” his mother sighed exhaustedly as she shook her head from the front seat. “Who gets this pissy about taking a vacation?”

Ben crossly glowered out his window, the gloomy overcast day matching his mental state, as Kaydel did the same beside him.

The Beach Boys _Wouldn’t It Be Nice_ piped softly through the car speakers as the windshield wipers slicked spatters of rain from the glass of the windshield at a rhythmic pace. His father drove down the highway, taking them further from home and closer to the Airbnb his parents had decided to rent for April vacation. A beachside rental that was practically useless now considering it was still too cold to swim in the ocean and the weekly weather forecast called for rain nearly every day that they would be away.

The endless ticking of Kaydel’s thumbs on her cell phone messages and his parents off-tune humming to _every song_ made Ben ache for the headphones he had stupidly stuffed into his suitcase, which was now lodged in the back of the SUV and too far out of reach to save him from this torture. Everything about this car ride made Ben want to scream. 

His mood only darkened further when he thought about getting to the rental house. What exactly were they supposed to do there anyway? It was off-season, too cold, shitty out, and likely going to thunderstorm for days. So were they going to sit in the rental house and stare at each other? Play board games every night and light candles when the lights inevitably went out? 

Fucking dumb. This whole thing was fucking dumb. He could have stayed home and had the house all to himself. Could have had Rey over every night. 

That thought just set his blood boiling. 

Kaydel huffed beside him, uncrossing and recrossing her legs in a fit. 

“You could have trusted us to stay at home you know,” she said, irritably. 

“And leave you in the sweaty, eager palms of Poe Dameron?” Han joked, briefly taking his eyes off the road to look back at them in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think so, Princess.” 

Ben kept his mouth shut about that, considering not even two weeks ago, his father had caught Rey sliding into the basement window, something that had become a little bit of a bad habit for the two of them. 

He wanted to take her out on a date for her 16th birthday, but instead, Jyn and Cassian had thrown her a surprise party, which had been fun too, even if it lacked the private time and intimacy they had both been addicted to lately. There wasn’t even a chance to kiss her at the party, which he so desperately wanted to do.

They had managed to go bowling as a group the weekend after on a sort-of-not-really triple date with Armie, Breyla, Poe, and Kay. The dynamic in the group was a little funny that way, with everyone viewing them as the two left-over singletons, forced to keep company out of default. Ben didn’t really have a problem keeping up that facade, for privacy’s sake. There were still some logical reasons to keep him and Rey to themselves.

A man can only hear so many sausage jokes about his own dick after all. 

Later that night, they had set up a projector in the backyard, watching _The Avengers_ on a white tarp draped against the house as they sat in front of the fire pit to warm themselves. It was still early spring and a bit chilly outside, but it was something different and a pretty cool idea Kaydel had come up with. Like a private, backyard movie theater. 

Much to his surprise, Rey had chosen to sit with him. It warmed him to see her wearing his black hoodie she still had from Luke’s berry harvest. She snuggled in beside him for warmth, draping a blanket over their legs and smiling slightly, sweetly taking his hand to hold beneath the cover of fabric. 

His heart had felt like it was soaring in his chest.

It was highly unusual for her to be that open, especially in front of the others, but he would take whatever she was willing to give. She needed to move at a pace she was comfortable with and Ben was more than willing to wait for her.

They were awakened at the ending credits, Kaydel shaking his Rey-free shoulder with the hint of a smirk, letting them know it was time to go inside. Rey leaped up from his side with a muttered apology for falling asleep on him that made him have to swallow down a laugh. 

Oddly, Kay had not brought that incident up again. He was sure that was about to change now that he had no means of avoiding her. She never forgot a thing. Like a conniving little elephant, storing information, categorizing it, waiting to weaponize it against him. 

He glanced over to her in the backseat just as the enormous pink bubble of chewing gum she had popped and deflated. Her head was down, distracted, as she ticked away on her phone screen.

“Turn the volume down,” he snapped.

“Turn _your_ volume down,” she replied with a scrunched nose and a dirty look shot his way.

They arrived a little under an hour later, rolling up to the small beach house and rushing back and forth in the rain to quickly unload their suitcases into the house. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ben muttered grumpily, flicking on the switch to the room he and Kaydel were going to be sharing for the next six nights. 

Bunk beds. His parents rented a stupid beach house with bunk beds.

For the first time in his life, he thought he might actually hate them. 

Kaydel’s shoulders slumped beside him in the doorway.

“This has to be punishment for all the times I skipped homework or lied about a test grade.”

“Yeah? Well, why I am being tortured too then?” he muttered, dragging his suitcase in behind him, eyeing the space between the beds and then between the top bunk and ceiling. His forehead already itched with the thought of how many times it would inevitably come in contact with either, no matter where he chose to sleep. 

“Did you ever accidentally pee on either of them when you were a baby?” she offered, climbing the rungs to the top bunk and then flopping herself on the mattress. “Maybe you destroyed one of Dad’s favorite coffee mugs as a tantruming toddler and he has been plotting his revenge ever since.”

“Uh oh, you’re on to us,” Han joked from the doorway with a smirk. He took a step inside, closing the door behind him. “Listen guys,” he said in a hushed tone, stepping further into the room to stand beside Ben on the beige rattan carpet. “I know this isn’t ideal and probably not how you wanted to spend your April break but,” his pale green eyes glanced back to the closed door. “She’ll never admit to it, but your mother is really having a hard time with what the next year is going to bring,” he ticked up his chin to Ben. “You’ll be out of the house, and you,” Han nodded to Kaydel, her chin resting in her hands, still on the top bunk. “Will undoubtedly be giving us more grey hairs than we would like. Can you just… do me a favor and try to make the best out of this trip, for Mom?”

That put a knot of guilt right in the center of Ben’s stomach. He hadn’t really considered that when he grumbled endlessly about this forced trip that seemingly came out of nowhere. 

His eyes met Kay’s and she had the same look of realization on her face.

“Sure Dad,” Ben said with a faint smile. Han reached up and patted him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, sorry for being brats about it,” Kaydel apologized softly.

Han chuckled, deep in his chest as he pulled open the bedroom door. “You’re my favorite brats and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Unpack and be ready in half an hour, we’re getting all you can eat lobster for dinner.”

That made Kaydel’s eyes light up and her eyebrows jump. “This might not be so bad after all!” she grinned at Ben.

And it wasn’t. The whole trip, really, once Ben decided to pull his head out of his grouchy ass.

They ate endless lobster wearing silly matching plastic bibs, and Ben actually smiled genuinely when Leia asked the waiter to take their picture in front of eight enormous bright-crimson lobsters, two for each of them. 

Both Ben and Han ended up getting a third and using their claws to cheers each other.

The following night his mother smiled warmly as he helped her shuck corn in the kitchen. She clapped a loving hand to his cheek and gave him an air kiss on her tippy toes. 

“What a good man I have raised,” she said, the quiet joy not fading from her features as she returned to the pile of carrots before her on the cutting board. 

It made Ben’s heart warm as he smiled a little bit too. It was nice, spending quiet time together with her like that. Watching her be free of the burdening weight of being the mostly-primary parent in a household, working full-time, and raising two, admittedly, _slightly_ intense children. 

One night they played what seemed to be a never-ending game of _Monopoly_ , then another his mother absolutely destroyed them all in a game of _Scrabble_. 

“I let her win,” his father stage whispered, granting him a swat to his arm from Leia from beside him at the table. 

“In your dreams, Fly Boy!”

They all laughed at that. They actually laughed a lot.

“Remember Skittles?” Kaydel asked one night as they sat around the dinner table long after the meal was finished.

Han’s brow furrowed. “That hamster thing?”

“He was a gerbil,” Ben corrected.

“ _Rat_ ,” Leia spat with a hint of venom. “I hated that tiny monster and his beady little eyes, always sneaking out of the cage and—” her sentence stopped short, and she exchanged a glance with Han. “Who wants dessert?” she asked cheerfully.

Ben and Kaydel exchanged a frown.

Then, Ben remembered something.

“You told us Skittles went away to college.”

Kaydel gasped as if she suddenly remembered too. “You did! Oh my God! Mom, Dad! What happened to Skittles?”

Han wrapped his hand over his mouth as if to conceal a grin and shook his head.

Their mother sighed heavily. “We… don’t actually know.”

“What?” Kaydel blanched.

Ben gave his mother a skeptical look. “If he just died you can tell us.”

“Oh,” Han said with a hint of amusement. “He’s definitely dead.”

Leia shrugged. “One day he was just gone. We looked for him everywhere. I even left out little peanut butter crackers for him. He just… didn’t come back.”

Kaydel’s mouth hung open in disgust. “Ew, so there could be a dead gerbil somewhere in the back of my closet and I didn’t even know about it?”

“Gerbil skeleton by now, sweetie, that was a long time ago,” Han said in a fake, soothing tone that made Ben snort.

“I like to think he slipped outside and ran away with some nice field mouse,” Leia offered with a few pats over Kaydel’s hand. 

By the end of the week, Ben had to admit that the trip was actually kind of fun. 

They took silly pictures in an oversized Adirondack chair outside of a restaurant, the four of them barely able to squeeze into the thing. More pictures of the four of them, wet, cold, and miserable on a local waterfall tour, covered in soaked sweatshirts and cheap plastic ponchos. 

It made Ben remember the last family vacation photo they had taken when he was maybe eight or nine and Kaydel probably six. How they stood together in front of Cinderella's castle in the searing heat, everyone with beaming smiles, except for him. He scowled, all black-haired and freckled in his red striped shirt, his ears poking out to match the Mickey set on the top of his head. 

The happiest place on earth, his ass.

It was hard to believe that was really their last family trip.

With summers spent in the pool, and his father traveling the majority of the year, he supposed it made sense. His parents invested their money in their home, making it a space where they could best enjoy the fruits of their labor. Their own little castle plopped right in suburbia.

He wondered idly if his mother would be lonely when he and Kaydel went off to school. If his father would cut back his flight schedules.

Apparently, so did his sister as she sighed dramatically from the top bunk above him while he was trying to get to sleep.

“It’s going to be so weird when you leave,” she said in a moony sort of tone. 

Ben knew that Kay was chatty, but it seemed even more so when it came time to go to bed. He wondered who the hell she talked to when they were home? Rey? Maybe Rose on a secret phone like Paige had? 

They didn’t have any service out there. They passed signs protesting the construction of a cell tower in the yards of the locals and it seemed like everywhere in town was a dead zone. The first few days it had been irritating, unable to distract themselves from each other with messages from friends and social media. As the week stretched on, it became easier and easier.

“I might actually kind of miss you, which is even weirder.”

Ben remained silent, hoping she would think he fell asleep already.

“You’re going to miss me a little bit too, right?”

He bit his lip. Sure, he’d miss having her around. He’d never really thought about it before because she was just always _there_ , but he supposed he would miss her too.

“I _know_ you’re not sleeping! _I’m trying to have a sibling moment with you, big brother!_ ”

Ben sighed.

“Yes, I’ll miss you too.”

“Good. Because we’re coming to the end of our childhoods and… it’s actually kind of sad.”

He hadn’t thought about that either. In a way, she was right. It was a little bit bittersweet, wasn’t it? Having spent so much of his youth wishing to be an adult already, now he stood here on the precipice, looking back on the valley of his young life as the sun set and the fog on the path ahead of him had not quite lifted. It was both sad and, quite frankly, scary.

He thought about his father’s words on that first night. About his mother struggling with such a big change to their family dynamic approaching so rapidly. How she was putting on a brave face for both of them.

How many times had she done that without them knowing?

“I wonder what Poe is doing,” Kaydel pondered out loud. They only had two nights left and the separation from him was starting to wear on her. Ben knew this because she told him. 

Every. Night. 

Cranky about her out loud musings he sighed again irritably. He and Han were planning on a pre-dawn fishing trip in just a few hours. He wanted to sleep. 

“I’m sure he’s lying awake right now, tossing and turning, wondering if you’ve run off to elope with some lifeguard,” he grumbled into his pillow, his eyes pressed closed, begging unconsciousness to come.

“It just sucks, you know, with him going off to college next year,” she continued, clearly not put off by his uninterested tone, per usual. Late night conversations with Kaydel were more her openly airing her thoughts and him grunting in a bored response. He just hoped to God she didn’t start rattling on about Mercury in retrograde or some other ridiculous star thing. “I’m sure we’ll break up before then. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to try to make it work long-distance, especially with all the college girls who will be throwing themselves at him. It’d be stupid to think that he could remain faithful under such pressure, right?”

Ben rolled to his back and stared daggers into the bed frame above him. She was digging. He could tell by her hopeful tone that she was looking for some kind of insider information to the side of her boyfriend's brain only his best friend could unlock.

Unfortunately for her, Ben and Poe had an unspoken rule that anything Kaydel concerned was completely and totally off the table when it came to conversation. Which made things difficult sometimes, especially when it came to talks about sex. 

Armitage was having lots of it and on pretty much every surface available and if Poe were dating anyone else, he would probably be more forthcoming with information that Ben most desperately needed. Things between him and Rey were reaching a tipping point and a little bit of guidance to a clueless virgin would be helpful from his more experienced friends. 

Rey had mentioned that she was going on birth control after she turned 16, but he didn’t want to ask her exactly when the timeline of that was because 1) he didn’t want to make her feel pressured to take things further than a few heated makeouts that led to them both panting and grinding against each other with their clothes still on and 2) because they still hadn’t made the leap to official coupledom yet.

He was okay with where they were though, dutifully towing along to whatever pace she wanted to set. He just wanted to make sure he was thoroughly prepared when she decided it was time to move things forward.

The first night she had slipped through the window of his basement, he had been caught off guard, watching a scary movie on the couch alone. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when she slid in, the heel of one of her shoes banging against the white-painted brick wall, synched perfectly to a jump-scare that had him choking back a yelp.

He paused the movie, springing up from the couch just in time to catch her around the waist as she slid her back over the window’s ledge. 

“What are you doing?” he asked when he was finally able to stop kissing her.

She grinned back at him, mischievously. 

“I texted you,” she ran a hand up his chest, stirring him deep within the cotton of his sweatpants. “I said I had never seen this one before and figured you’d want the company.” His phone sat, ignored on the ottoman, but it hadn’t mattered, she was already there.

He wished he could say he knew how the movie ended, but he was thoroughly distracted as he palmed at her bare breasts, her hair forming a curtain around their faces as she gasped quietly into his mouth. 

It happened like that a few times, the two of them left writhing, flushed, and more frustrated than satisfied, neither being bold enough to bring it to another level just yet. 

After the third time she had slipped in the window after texting him to see what he was watching—only to completely block his view with her perfect tits all shiny and sucked nearly red from his mouth, he knew he had to take matters into his own hands and do the unthinkable. 

Armie stared back at him blankly at first, as if the wiring in his brain short-circuited and froze up completely.

Ben could feel the heat rising in his chest, roaring up to his neck and cheeks, as a smile slowly began to curl his friend’s lips from across the lunch table.

“Are you—?”

“Forget it!” Ben interrupted, already hating himself for the stupid idea. But who else was he going to turn to? Reddit? He made a move to stand up from the lunch table and run out of the cafeteria to pretend he never uttered the question to begin with.

“No no no,” Armie insisted, stopping him. “I have put lots of hours into this topic and I am here to share my wisdom with you, my friend.”

Ben hesitated, before settling back onto his seat cautiously.

Armie gave him a solid rundown of the basics, actually doing a pretty thorough job, taking a moment to even draw him a diagram on a torn corner of notebook paper. 

“The clit is incredibly important,” he said with intense seriousness, the two of them leaning over the table in hushed tones. “You want to make sure it’s the star of the show, but understand that the supporting cast also needs stage time too in order to make the performance really memorable. It can get confusing down there, so if you find yourself at a loss, revert to tonguing the alphabet and listen to what she responds to. Take what works and repeat it.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably. 

“But what if she doesn’t make any noise at all? Or worse, she fakes it because I’m awful and she’s bored?”

Armie shook his head. “Make sure to tell her to let you know,” he frowned a little, poking a finger in Ben’s direction. “If you slip a finger in, you’ll be able to feel her clench when it feels good. She won’t even know she’s doing it.”

“What if she doesn’t want me to—” Ben’s eyes skittered around the room nervously as he leaned closer, whispering. “Put a finger in. What if it’s just…” his brain wheeled. “Surface contact.”

Armitage hummed thoughtfully. “You’ll just have to try your best then. Give it some gusto and hope your face buried in her pussy is already pretty exciting to begin with.”

Ben hissed for him to be quieter, looking around again.

Armie laughed, leaning in, eyebrows wagging. “So is this just a hypothetical or do you have a lucky lady already in mind?”

“I’m not answering that,” Ben said sternly, leaning back and swiping the vagina diagram off the top of the table before someone walked by and saw it. 

“Hmm,” smugly, Armie leaned back, folding his arms before him, eyes narrowing. “I bet Stringbean will be walking around with a brighter smile than usual in the upcoming weeks.”

Heat once again ripped through Ben’s body as he attempted to stutter out an objection, but Armie raised a calm hand, grin firmly locked.

“I’m proud of you, wanting to eat your vegetables and all,” he teased.

“You’re awful, I don’t even know why we’re still friends,” Ben muttered as he stood up from the table, ears burning.

“Aw, c’mon! That was a Dameron quality joke!”

Armie was wrong of course. Ben hadn’t had a chance to use his newly advised skills because instead of Rey crawling through his window undetected night after night, he watched in horror as his father frowned, watching her sneaker-clad feet dangle in through the window as he stopped mid-sentence, informing Ben about the very trip they were currently on.

Han walked to the window as Rey struggled to wiggle in, watching amusedly as the lower half of her twisted and bowed in the open basement passage. He reached up, grabbing her by the waist, like Ben usually did, steadying her to help her with her descent. 

Rey let out a shocked gasp, her face going ashen, eyes wide, as her feet hit the floor and she came face-to-face with his father.

“Mr. Solo!” she blanched, clearly stunned. Clawing embarrassment climbed Ben’s spine, as he looked on helplessly. Rey’s eyes jolted over Han’s shoulder to look at him, and he winced a silent apology. 

Ridiculously, Rey looked around her, trying her best to act confused. “Hey wait,” she squeaked, unconvincingly. “This isn’t Kaydel’s room!”

An amused smile lifted one side of his father’s mouth. “You undershot it by two whole stories, kid.”

“Oh well, um,” Rey laughed nervously, her face now glowing bright red. “Whoops,” she offered with a weak shrug and a pained smile.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Han said in a stern tone, yet unable to wipe the humored expression completely from his face. “I’m going to go upstairs and in ten minutes, I’m going to come back down and you,” he pointed to Ben. “Are going to be doing whatever it is you do down here at night and you,” he pointed to Rey as she hung her head and nervously bit her lip. “Are not going to be here. Sound good?”

They both nodded bashfully, visibly relieved. 

“Okay… good,” Han confirmed, heading towards the stairs and shaking his head. 

Rey sighed, eyes meeting Ben’s apologetically and he sucked in his lips, shaking his head a little, the hilarity of the situation finally lightening the room. She started to smile back.

“And Rey,” Rey jumped at Han’s voice, eyes darting back to him as he turned at the bottom of the steps. “I’m not one to tell a kid what they should or shouldn’t do with their lives, but I’m gonna go ahead and suggest you take cat burglary off of your list.” 

Giving a little laugh, she nodded. “Yes, Mr. Solo.”

With another amused shake of his head, his father climbed the stairs and put a temporary hold on anything further until they got back from their trip. 

“Ben,” Kaydel whispered harshly from above him on the top bunk. Ben jolted slightly, being pulled from his thoughts. 

He heard her shift around, the frame above his head creaking slightly from her weight. The curtain of her blonde hair fell over the edge of the bed and she hung her head down to peer at him. Well, scowl at him, really.

“You seriously won’t tell me anything?” she snapped.

Ben shrugged, lifting his arms and tucking his hands under his pillow, entirely too tired for this conversation. 

“We don’t talk about you, Kay,” he sighed, closing his eyes again. “You’re my sister, that’d be creepy.”

She hummed in disappointment.

“Too bad, because I was willing to swap secrets about Rey.”

Ben’s eyes flew open just in time to see the last tips of her hair disappear in the dark and hear the bed above him shift again.

Did Rey really talk about him? The excitement of it accelerated his heart as he sat up.

“What do you mean?” he whispered, eyes trained on the wooden slats above his head. 

Kaydel gave a loud fake yawn, ignoring him.

He laid back down, pressing his feet to the underside of her mattress and pushing up. It lifted easily, and she squealed.

“ _Stop it!_ ” 

“Kaydel, tell me what you mean!”

“You don’t know anything about Poe, I don’t know anything about Rey. I misspoke.”

He lifted her mattress again.

“Ben, _stop it!_ ”

“ _Tell me!_ ”

There was a rustling of her bedsheets and the creek of the ladder that let him know that she was moving down towards him before her feet hit the floor with a soft thud. He sat up again and she was in his face before his brain could compute it, finger pointed.

“I _knew_ you liked her! _I knew it!_ ” she hissed, jabbing him in the chest twice, before sitting back on the edge of his bed, smugly. Ben frowned, rubbing the spot where her fingernail had poked, bitterly. 

“So what?” he tried to cover his tracks with flippant feigned disinterest, per usual. “She’s pretty. It’s not a crime to think someone’s pretty. Doesn’t mean you’re obsessed with them or anything.”

Kaydel scoffed, the white underside of her eyes gleaming as she rolled them to the ceiling. “You must think I am _so_ stupid—”

“Obviously—”

“Because it’s totally _obvious_ you two are completely, stupidly gaga over each other and I just don’t understand why you feel the need to hide it so much.”

He stared at his sister in silence and she stared back. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said curtly, and she growled out a frustrated sigh as he laid back down, rolling to his side away from her. 

She stabbed another finger into his side and he grunted.

“Stop that!” he snarled, batting away her hand.

“If you told me the truth I could help you, you know!” she ridiculed, her weight lifting from the mattress, as the ladder and bedsprings alerted her return to her own bed.

Hours later, as he and his father cast their lines into the languid lapping water of a pebbled inlet, he wondered if maybe there was a little bit of truth to her claim.

She was Rey’s best friend after all. Who else would know better?

He knew Rey liked him, hopefully, _more than_ liked him, but… maybe having someone a little closer to her in his corner could be helpful?

“Dad,” he asked, his breath misting before him in the chilly pre-dawn air. “When did you know you were in love with Mom?”

His father threw out his line across the water again, the shiny thread floating and glinting in the light of the slowly rising sun.

“Keeping it to the light stuff today, huh?” he joked with a bit of a smirk. He thought for a moment. “I’m not sure really. We didn’t exactly get along when we first met. She was the loudmouth know-it-all who always sat next to me in this one college class. She had opinions on everything and it became a little bit of a game for me to get her all riled up,” he smiled fondly. “Oh _man_ , she used to get so mad at me.”

Ben grinned because he could almost picture it.

“She called me every name in the book. My God, I had never met a woman who could hurl insults with more pointed accuracy.” Slowly, Han cranked the spool of the fishing line back to him. “And then one day it was raining and she didn’t have an umbrella, so I gave her mine,” he shrugged. “It was like a little olive branch between us. She realized I wasn’t a complete scoundrel and I realized I liked it better when I made her smile.” 

“But then you dropped out and went to aviation school, right?” Ben had long forgotten about his own line, laying still in the water. He started to adjust the drag, pulling the line back to him.

Han hummed in agreement. 

“Yeah, that was rough. The distance. She started dating some clown from school and the moment I got my diploma in my hand I drove back home, knocked on her door, and asked her to marry me.” His father frowned thoughtfully. “So maybe that’s when I knew? When the gamble of her rejecting me was nowhere near as scary as losing her to someone else?”

“Well, she obviously said yes.”

His dad barked out a laugh.

“No, she didn’t! She told me to get off her porch and to get my head checked.”

“Damn,” Ben said quietly with a little laugh.

“After a few more attempts though, I finally convinced her. We weren’t perfect, but we certainly belonged together.” Han made a face and brought his fist up to his chest, giving a few quick pounds to his sternum. “God damn food this week has my heartburn raging like a son of a bitch,” he shook his head and eyed Ben for a moment. “You think you’re in love with the Andor kid?”

Ben kept his sight set straight, the cold morning air keeping his face cool and unflushed. He pressed his lips together and nodded tightly. Han nodded too.

“She’s a sweet girl, tough little thing. You’re going to need someone to call you out on your bullshit sometimes. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you can be quite the hothead.”

Ben scoffed, grinning. Then, his smile quickly fell.

He didn’t get time like this often. There weren’t a whole lot of opportunities where it was just the two of them and Ben had such a huge, private issue, holding a weight in the back of his mind.

“Dad… there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Something that I haven’t even been able to tell Mom yet.”

A corner of Han’s smile tucked into his cheek. “It’s just you, me, and the frostbite out here, kid.”

Ben nodded, a bit of the tension that had been weighing on him lately lifting slightly.

  
  


***

  
  


**Welcome home!** 😄🎉🎊 

Rey’s text from the day before made him smile down at his phone in the kitchen.

It was too late to see her last night when they got in.

From the den, Ben could hear the intense sounds of a horror movie soundtrack. All creepy theremins and sharply struck piano keys. Perfect for the rainy gloomy night. The rest of the house was quiet, save the patter of the rain, and the soft hum of the refrigerator across from him.

The girls were in there, Rey included, watching one of those god awful _The Conjuring_ sequels. 

He drummed his fingers against his pant leg, contemplating what he should do. Should he just go in there and sit with her? Maybe stick his head in and ask if anyone wanted something to drink?

He laughed at himself. Sure, that wouldn’t be suspicious _at all_. 

It had been over a week since he had seen her and he missed her. He wanted to say hello, maybe kiss her senseless. It was driving him _insane_ that she was so close!

 **I’m in the kitchen** , he wrote, and waited.

Shortly after, Rey came through the doorway, her grin instantly growing to match his.

Stepping forward, ready to pull her towards him, he paused when she brought her finger to her lips silently. She moved to the cabinet, reaching up on her tiptoes to grab a box of popcorn resting on the top shelf. Her little gray shorts shifted higher, not helping with his impatience to touch her.

She shucked off the plastic liner, putting the bag in the microwave. It lit up, humming to life.

Turning, she rested herself against one of the doors of the fridge, her legs slightly kicked out, hands spreading out behind her backside, palms on the stainless steel surface.

She bit her lip with a smile and he was fucking done. 

He moved forward quickly, head lowering to take her mouth with his. Shifting, she arched her body up towards him, arms raising around his neck, her tongue gently sweeping against his own. He pushed her back against the surface of the fridge, a few magnets falling to clack against the tiled floor. Slotting one of his legs between hers, she rubbed herself against his thigh and he thought his brain might explode out of the back of his head. He kissed her deeper, not wanting to crush her entirely, but also wanting to connect to _every fucking part_ of her. 

He pushed himself against her belly, needing _something_ , some kind of friction to ease his aching dick that had grown so uncontrollably hard in a mere matter of seconds. 

“I missed you so much,” he murmured against her mouth.

“I missed you,” she panted back hotly, pushing down against him harder, her hips picking up a gentle rhythm. Her mouth broke from his, her breath coming out in gentle gasps against his lips, as her fingers twined tightly into his hair.

This was insane. They were both nuts and probably going to get caught.

Her tongue slid against his again and he realized he didn’t actually care.

This was really happening. Yes. Holy fucking shit.

The kernels began to pop when her hand frantically fumbled around for his before slipping it between their bodies, his fingers sliding against the soft skin of her belly, just below the band of her shorts. 

Ben felt like he might pass right out. Maybe explode. He wasn’t sure which. 

The smell of heated butter and toasted corn started to fill the room and he was sure that for the rest of his life he’d probably pop a boner every time he walked into a movie theater and smelled the concession stand. 

“Hurry,” she puffed out in a quiet plea. 

Another magnet fell to the floor and the popping kernels were picking up speed.

Ben had to swallow roughly. “You sure?”

She nodded vigorously. “It’s all I’ve thought about.”

Shit. That made his brain practically cough out black smoke.

Backing up he watched her face as he slid his hand down, fingertips finding soft shorn hair and then blissfully hot slickness. 

Her eyes widened and he closed his eyes briefly, saying a silent thank you to whatever holy deity it was that was allowing this to happen right now as he softly bumped his forehead to rest on the fridge door. 

Lowering his mouth, he feverishly kissed along the crook of her neck, fingers dragging up and down through her soft, wet crease. He tried to remember the diagram Armie drew, not exactly putting it to use like he had expected, but not unhappy about it either. His fingers circled the harder bundle of nerves at the peak, then ran down to rewet themselves again at the searing core of her. Licking his lips, he gently nudged in the tip of his middle finger. Rey hissed and he paused, head snapping back to look at her. 

“Is that okay? Did that hurt?”

The popcorn was beating against the inside of the bag like gunshots and there were more magnets on the floor than on the fridge.

She shook her head, eyes hooded, heavy with lust. 

“No. No, keep going,” she begged in breathy little spurts.

He pushed in further, his eyes locked on hers as her eyelashes fluttered a little, a delicate pinch appearing in her brow. She was so _hot_ inside. And _compact_ around his finger. And _wet_ and a million other incredible things that made Ben’s blood burn. Made his brain float and his dick leak as he wondered how it would feel to push inside her.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her breathlessly because his brain was too fried to keep his mouth shut and not be a total idiot. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”

“I-” whatever she was going to say caught in her throat, her mouth dropping open into a silent ‘o’ as he nudged in his index finger, the two snugly pressed together inside her heat. 

He wanted to remember this moment forever. Remember her perfect face, blushed and blissful, her eyes looking up at him like he was maybe the most beautiful thing _she_ had ever seen too. 

“Rey, hurry up you’re missing the best parts!” Kaydel called from the tv room. 

The microwave dinged.

“C-coming!” Rey strained back with a hint of a smile.

Ben huffed out a little laugh, dropping his mouth to hers again as he pulled his coated fingers out of her, rubbing her with the slippery tips in a sloppy figure 8, stroking around her entrance and then up to her clit. She pitched forward with a soft mewl, her forehead resting against his shoulder, her hips shifting softly along with his movements. Her fingers dug into the sleeves of his shirt as she made weak little noises that would surely be haunting his dreams for the rest of his life.

Finally, she trembled against him, strained open-mouthed puffs escaping from her as she closed her eyes, her head back. Gorgeous. 

She was coming. He had made her come.

_In his kitchen._

Ben had never been more turned on in his life as he kissed her again, his hand pressing against her, gathering up as much of her arousal as possible. 

He pulled himself away from her and she gave him a confused look until she saw him, palming himself roughly in one hand, the other covered in her shiny slick. 

“I, um-”

She nodded wordlessly.

As fast as humanly possible, he ran to the bathroom in the far corner of the kitchen, dropping his pants as soon as the door closed behind him. He slid his tight wet fist over the head of his cock, imagining what it would be like to press inside that searing, little hole his fingers were just able to explore.

He came in less than 10 pumps. 

When he went back out, after he managed to calm down and clean up, the kitchen was empty. 

He passed the den out of curiosity, feigning a dire need for a book from the case in the hallway. The girls were sitting on the couch, covered in blankets. Rey had a big bowl of popcorn in her lap, Kaydel and Rose on either side of her, all their faces pale blue from the tv light. 

“You made popcorn?” he said casually, walking into the den, stealing a glance at the shitty horror movie they were watching. 

“No, we’re burning a popcorn candle, this is lasagna,” his sister replied because if there was ever a chance to be a smartass, she always had to take it. He ignored her, moving forward and bending down to grab a handful from the bowl in Rey’s lap, eyes fixed on her.

“Let me know if you want to make some more later, I might want a midnight snack.”

Her cheeks darkened in the most adorable way, and he couldn’t hold back the grin from his face.

“Get out of the way!” Kaydel griped, firing a fluffy kernel his way.

He chuckled, popping a few pieces into his mouth before he went back downstairs. 

Assuming that there was no way his parents, or Rey’s for that matter, would let her sleepover, he went to bed slightly disappointed that his cocky dare would go unchecked. 

So it was incredibly shocking to be woken out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night by the quiet whisper of his name.

“Rey?” he asked groggily, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up. It was so dark in his room he could only see a dim thin outline of light around her darkened figure.

She pressed her knee into the side of his mattress, her hand patting around the blankets over his legs gently.

“I can’t find you,” she giggled in a whisper and he reached forward, softly grabbing her wrist to pull her close to him. 

She came to rest over him, seated on his lap, her hands warm on his bare shoulders as his own hands slid up and down the silky skin of her lower back beneath her shirt. 

“There you are,” she breathed into his lips before covering them with her own.

Ben groaned, roughly catching her by the hips to still her from rocking them against him. 

“Baby,” he strained, his body once again alight, _burning_ , with his need to touch her everywhere. Be inside of her. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I know, but, ” she said softly, her nails gently scraping into the hair at the nape of his neck. 

Ben’s brain screamed that he should stop, slow down. His mouth ignored that and nipped at her neck instead. She shuddered and sighed in his arms and it fanned the growing heat inside of him. 

“I know,” she said again, even weaker this time, as she lolled her head back, stretching her neck out for him. “But I—I was thinking about something else... while you were gone.”

He hummed, curious, as his hand drifted up, his thumb swiping over her nipple as he continued to tongue and suck at her neck. 

“What’s that?” he mumbled. 

He felt the column of her throat shift as she swallowed nervously. 

“I’d rather just show you.”

Ben broke his mouth from her throat with a soft pop, feeling the rise and fall of her ribcage under his palm, the pound of her racing heartbeat against his fingertips.

“Okay,” he said quietly, as she pushed him back tentatively against his pillows and headboard. His stomach clenched as she crawled backward down his body to rest between his legs, her hand drifting to the band of his shorts. 

He sucked in a deep breath and held it as his cock bobbed out into the open night air, the skin of it stretched tight and angry. _Throbbing._

“Whoa,” she breathed softly, pausing before she wrapped her hand around the base of him. Ben had to let go of that same body grounding breath, needing a release of tension before he ended this all too quickly and embarrassingly again. 

“Careful, he spits,” he strained. As soon as he said it, he slapped his hands over his face in humiliation.

_JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTWHATISTHEMATTERWITHYOU?!_

Rey huffed a quiet chuckle that brushed over the hot head of his dick, slightly cooling the already leaking pre-cum.

“It’s okay, I’m really nervous too. I’ve never, well… you already know,” there was another moment of hesitation. “And… you’re—it’s—” there was a gentle squeeze around his shaft that caused him to squirm, seeking more. Her hand couldn’t even close around it.

God _damn it._ Stupid salami cock!

“Rey, you don’t have to—” He stilled as her petal-soft lips parted and sucked a gentle kiss to the tip, causing Ben’s head to fall back with a thud against his wooden headboard. 

“Tell me what feels good, okay?” she whispered, before taking more of him into her velvety, slick mouth. She made a small whimper as her tongue cradled the underside of him and she sucked softly, pulling more of him in with each slow, rhythmic pump.

Ben groaned deeply, resisting the urge to let his hips join in and to push up into her mouth. 

“It feels so good. You’re doing so good,” he encouraged, his fingers drifting down to gently cup beneath her straining jaw. 

Ben knew that he was big, locker room teasing aside. It seemed like for most of his life everything about him was too big. Too much. 

His thumbs massaged gently at the hinge of her jaw urging her to relax it. She let out a strained breath through her nose and he felt the tension ease. He didn’t want to ruin her first time doing this by being too rough. His pelvis craved movement, to naturally pump up into her sweet, hot mouth. “So, so good, baby,” he praised, barely able to form the words.

Rey moaned around him, over half of him now worked into her stretched mouth. The sensation caused his hips to jerk involuntarily, causing her wretch back with a gag and a sputtered cough.

“Shit!” Ben sprang forward to soothingly rub at her shoulders as she coughed some more. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!”

“It’s okay,” she said a little winded, her hand already wrapped around him again, ready to dive back in. 

He lost his breath and she slid him back into her mouth, already more confident in the depth of her strokes than before. He could only take a few more pulls before he had to kindly push her off.

“What?” she breathed in deep little pants.

“Lay back,” his own voice sounded soft, but firm, despite the thundering boom of his own nerves. He could do this. He could make her come twice in a night.

There was a slight delay before she gently shifted back, her knees coming up and forward as she repositioned herself. His eyes had adjusted better to the dark now, and he watched as she shimmied out of a small pair of polka-dotted underwear, tossing them aside and pressing her knees back together. 

“Ben, do you have condoms?”

Ben’s brain let out a halting _shriek_.

Dumbfounded, he shook his head, momentarily at a loss for words. 

“N-no,” he stuttered, still slightly shocked. “I didn’t think—that wasn’t what I was thinking when I said to lay back. I didn’t think we’d go that far.”

Rey let out a gush of a deep breath, her shoulders drooping a little. 

“Me neither, _but then I thought that you wanted to_ and—”

“We can stop right now if you want,” Ben amended quickly, heart pounding. This wasn’t what he wanted at all—her feeling like she had to do things because it’s what she thought _he_ wanted. Fuck. “I mean, _I do want to_ , someday, with you, hopefully,” he stammered on, pushing his slowly softening erection back into his shorts. He reached up and gripped her by the side of her arms. “But we can just… reel it back if you want to. Anything you want, Rey.”

Rey nodded, her face looking over his in the dark room. 

“I want to be your girlfriend. Like for real.”

Ben let out a small laugh. 

“Were you my girlfriend for fake before?”

She punched him in the shoulder and his hand reached up to rub it, as he laughed some more. 

“You know what I mean!”

“I guess I’ve considered you to be my girlfriend for quite a while now,” he turned, dropping his feet to the floor and standing to cross the room. Rifling through a drawer, he pulled out a pair of boxer shorts for her. Handing them off, he sat back on the bed. “I know you were having a hard time with the whole locker thing. I didn’t want to pressure you into anything you weren’t comfortable with. You seemed to only want to hook up in secret.”

She slid her legs into the shorts, before standing and slipping them over her peachy little butt, pale white in the darkness. Sitting back beside him she sighed.

“Sorry. I was just… worried, I guess.”

Ben smiled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her against him. 

“They better hope I never find out who did that. Meant for you or not,” he gave her a kiss to the top of her head, his hand running comfortingly up and down the length of her arm.

She hummed softly and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. 

“Can I stay down here with you? We can set an alarm, like last time?” she asked, softly, hopefully.

It was a terrible idea. They both knew it. If they got caught both their parents would be pissed. 

But she was just so warm and snuggly and he was suddenly so, so tired.

“Yeah,” he kissed the top of her hair again.

  
  


***

The alarm pierced her brain and seared into her eyes in the still dark room. Groggily, a heavy, comforting arm lifted from her side, swiping it off and plunging the room back into black. Ben let out a weighted, sleepy sigh against the back of her neck. 

There was a dull ache in Rey’s jaw and she remembered why when he pulled her closer, feeling the hard length of him spooned against her bottom.

It spiked her heartbeat to have it _so close_. To be able to feel it through their clothing, her borrowed shorts. 

She clamped her eyes shut, a flush rising when she remembered the saline taste, buttery soft skin, and the stretch of her mouth around Ben the night before. 

It was nothing like she had expected, but also, she wasn’t sure she would have wanted it to go any other way. 

Almost. She would have liked to have made him come at least. 

Ben’s chest rose and fell against her back as he cradled himself around her. 

She should get up. Find her own shorts and underwear and slip back into Kaydel’s room before this got ruined for both of them.

Her hand shifted back underneath the toasty down covers to grip at Ben’s thigh as she gingerly pushed herself back against him.

He exhaled, heating her neck again, his arm snaking under hers to slither up her stomach and cup her breast with a gentle squeeze. She pushed against him once more.

“Can you come like this?” she whispered, and he nodded silently, nosing into her hair. 

It didn’t take long. She had read somewhere that morning erections were more sensitive than regular ones. It seemed like there was obviously some truth to that when Ben muttered a few fevered curses against her scalp after he readjusted himself to rub right along the heated seam of her body.

It had felt _so_ good. She could almost fall back to sleep.

“Shit,” he sighed quietly as he caught his breath, trailing a line of kisses down her neck. “ _Good. Morning_.” 

Rey let out her own throaty groan, pulling herself away from him reluctantly. His bed was so incredibly enticing. Huge and cozy. Like a giant nest of churning, fleecy blankets that immediately induced a feeling of being swallowed whole by comfort. 

But she had to get back, before Kaydel, _or worse_ , Mr. and Mrs. Solo woke up. 

It probably would have been impossible to pull herself out of the big, drowsy arms of Ben Solo if it weren’t the increasingly sticky and uncomfortable splotch of wetness she had caused on the inside of his sleep shorts. 

She opted to use the upstairs bathroom to clean herself up ( _again_ ) so he could use the downstairs. Not even turning the light on, she peed in the dark, fearing the sound of the fan would stir someone awake.

Once finished, she opened the door and nearly knocked right into Kaydel, as she crankily frowned back at her in the doorway. 

“You’ve been in here for a while,” Kay grumbled, her bun sleep-sloppy and crooked on the top of her head, her eyes barely even open.

“Yeah, sorry,” Rey hushed, already feeling guilty about lying. “Tummy troubles.”

Kay’s frown deepened even further and she reached forward, her fingertips gently touching Rey’s neck.

“I think you might have hives. What did you eat? The popcorn maybe?” Kay shook her head moving past Rey in the doorway and shucking down her pajama pants to sit on the toilet. “That bagged shit is probably full of all kinds of preservatives.” 

Not unused to having shared a bathroom with her friend before, Rey spun to face the mirror in the still darkened room as her eyes widened to the clearly visible blooms of splotchy marks all over her neck and collarbone.

Iron gripped fear squeezed her belly painfully.

Not hives.

Hickeys. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title  
> [Block Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdkmhquF60o)-Banquet


	10. Seasons came and changed the time, When I grew up I called him mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HULLO!
> 
> I don't know why but my brain did not want to write for months. Apologies, my friends. Thank you to all of you who reached out with your support and love for this fic. 
> 
> I am so excited to post this that I am not even waiting for a beta, I'm just letting it rip. So any dumb mistakes are totally the fault of my last two brain cells bumping together. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Underage sexual experiences with a splash of non-con, drinking, drug use, panic attack, mention of a miscarriage/fertility complications, emotional trauma, overall teenage dipshittyness.

[View post on imgur.com](https://imgur.com/sIsMq4c)

There were a few things about Ben that he liked to keep to himself. Little personal secrets that he supposed everyone else had too, locked up or stowed away in a hidden corner of their personality. 

He’d rather die than admit his favorite color wasn’t actually the black or grey tones that he typically dressed in, but was in fact magenta. It would be too hard to explain that the shade instantly reminded him of the deep pink rhododendrons that used to sweetly bloom each spring outside of his Grandparent’s house. He’d also never admit that he still kept one blossom pressed between wax paper in his journal from the 5th grade. That, and many other secrets, were securely stored with his other journals in a corner tile of the drop ceiling in his bedroom, where Kaydel couldn’t easily access them. 

There were a lot of things Ben felt sentimental about, yet for some reason, never shared with anyone else. 

His favorite holiday dish was the fresh cranberry salad his mother always made. He was the only one who ever ate it, yet Leia insisted on making it year after year, despite Han and Kaydel’s groans and scrunched noses of revulsion. The recipe was her own mother’s, featuring whole berries, celery, jelly, walnuts, and a few other items that Ben would usually find saccharine and disgusting, but somehow found himself craving the dish as Thanksgiving approached. 

One of his first memories of his Grandma Breha was standing in his Grandparents kitchen. The air in the room was thick and delicious, as meat roasted, bread baked, vegetables steamed, and casserole dishes bubbled. The windows behind the curtains were covered in steam, and the sound of family and friends gathered in the living room behind them murmured and buzzed. His mother and grandmother shifted before him as he watched them move gracefully around each other between the countertop, stove range, and kitchen table. 

Sometimes, when Leia recalled the great meals she and her mother used prepare together, she still got a distant, glassy look in her eye. 

Ben was small then, still unable to even see what they were doing as they chatted and worked together with their backs to him. Kaydel was sleeping in a high chair pushed up to the table that was covered in a plastic tablecloth dotted with turkeys, orange flowers, and overflowing cornucopia. 

He was feeling restless, the living room being too noisy and busy for his sensitive ears. He wanted his mother’s attention. Wanted her to maybe stop rolling dough or frying whatever wondrous smelling thing it was in the pan on the stove and turn to him and play. 

He drew her a picture of a dog. She nodded approvingly, with a glance, then requested a picture of a cat next. Then their house. Then a rocketship. Ben diligently did all of those things, but eventually became bored again. Couldn’t she just read him a story? Or maybe shuck off her apron and push him on the swing outside for just a little? His fragile mood darkened.

Then, Grandma Breha lifted his small chin, stuffing a sweet and flaky bite of something soft and applely into his mouth as she spoke to him in Hebrew. 

“Matòk,” she cooed, her voice soft and raspy like worn paper. She often spoke to him in Hebrew. He didn’t understand what she was saying, but the way she said it always calmed him, satiated him on an instinctual level. He could still feel her soft hands and remember the love in her tone.

She dug into her apron, pulling forth a handful of small, plastic figurines. Green, with rounded hats, holding pointy objects, their molded faces firm, and their feet cemented into a flat oval blob. A kiss landed on his forehead as she shooed him gently to the kitchen table, where he sat, fully fascinated by these tiny new synthetic figures and the world he began to create for them.

Mom did not like them. On the ride home, she and Han had argued whether Ben would get to keep them or not. Kaydel could swallow one. Leia wasn’t comfortable with Ben liking things called guns. 

In the end, he got to keep them. He still had them, all six in their various fighting stances, one missing the tip of his bayonet, another slightly melted into a back-bend. They lived in a shoebox under his bed with a series of other objects Ben could never bring himself to throw away. A reading medal from the 3rd grade. An old picture of him as a baby with a goofy pointed hat on being held by his Grandpa Bail in front of a birthday cake with a single lit candle. Another picture of he and Jannah, in matching Camp Jakku t-shirts, both missing their front teeth. A four leaf clover trapped between two strips of tape. Some rocks he once thought were cool, plucked from the pond. A mix tape his Dad had made for his mom, which he didn’t even have means of playing. A birthday card made from a folded and faded piece of pink construction paper Kaydel had made for him when she had just learned how to write his name. The clipping from the newspaper announcing the tragic bus accident carrying Senator Organa, his wife, and his team as they campaigned for his reelection. His grandfather's dog-tags. 

He didn’t take the box out often, it’s contents being bittersweet. Having access to those items felt like owning his own time machine to the past. Things, that if discovered, wouldn’t have much meaning to anyone else, but each reopened a memory for Ben. 

When he was little, he used to slip the tags over his head, the small plastic green men suddenly becoming his comrades as they fought their way through the enemies of his imagination.

He sometimes wondered if that was where his secret want to join the military came from.

It was assumed he would go to college. He had applied to a dozen schools, none of which he was particularly excited to hear back from. There was a slight itching, needling of something uncertain, nervous, and off in his stomach whenever he thought about himself on a college campus. 

At first, he wondered if it was just the fear of leaving the comfort of home. Venturing into semi-adulthood and being expected to maintain his own grades and lifestyle without the supervision of parental guidance. But that wasn’t exactly it.

The ghost of _it_ , that missing, mysterious thing kept him awake at night sometimes, causing him to toss and turn, uneasy. Made his mind churn and his chest twist. 

What _was_ it that he wanted? What was it that was going to make this feeling of unfulfillment go away?

His junior year, during the college fair, he and Poe had browsed the booths, taking pamphlets talking to representatives from various schools. His mother was really hopeful that he would pick her and Luke’s alma mater, Alderaan University, to become a legacy student, but he had little interest in that personally. 

He picked up an application for a prestigious music school. One or two more for State schools, another for Corellia University (at the request of Paige, who had big ideas for them to move off-campus and share an apartment), and one more for a trade school, just to shut his father up. 

“Blue-collar jobs are going to make the new middle class,” Han lectured him, posted at the grill on their deck one evening, flipping marinated chicken for dinner. “There are fewer and fewer skilled workers in the world and more and more kids with debt and useless degrees. It’d probably piss your mother off, but you’ve been doing that for years, so why stop now?” he chuckled, amusedly.

But the pamphlet that Ben took, hid away, and looked at most was for the U.S. Marines Corps. 

It seemed, to many he would guess, out of his character. To join a rigorous organization with such high demands and strict control. With locked-in standards and concrete expectations. Ben, usually opposed to authority and with a bit of a “fuck-the-man” mentality, couldn’t honestly figure it out himself. Yet, he thought about that pamphlet, thought about his quick conversation with the recruitment officer, while Poe was distracted and off at another booth. Thought about the description of hard work, sacrifice, reward, and pride that would come from setting a tall, fulfilling goal. 

About what it meant to be of service. To protect and defend all he loved in the most extreme kind of way. 

Something about the challenge of it was incredibly enticing. Could he survive basic training? Could he handle drill sergeants, sleepless nights, and pushing his body to the limits? What if he had to go to combat? Why was it something his mind constantly wandered back to, month after month, as he got closer and closer to the end of high school? 

In the chilly morning sun of their family vacation, he had finally confessed his yearning for this unknown future to his father.

Han’s eyebrows raised, clearly shocked.

 _"You_ want to go into the military?”

And for the first time ever, Ben finally, openly said what had been haunting him for months.

“Yeah, Dad. I really think I do.”

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


One Sunday morning in May, Rey awoke to the sound music. Not like the radio of a passing car or the _Alexa_ Jyn listened to in the kitchen, but _actual_ music. A guitar, a tambourine, and… a whistle? In her front yard?

Frowning from sleep and confusion, she pulled herself out of bed and shuffled to her window.

On the lawn looking back up at her was Ben, strumming his guitar while Armie and Poe goofily skipped and danced around him. Poe banging and shaking a tambourine, Armie gleefully tooting on, indeed, a whistle. Below them, the words _PROM?_ were sprayed on the lawn in white paint, above them, back on the sidewalk, Cassian raised his phone, clearly taking a picture or video, with an excited wave.

Rey’s stomach plummeted with excitement and embarrassment. She let out a surprised gasp, her hands flying up to her mouth, the curtain to her window dropping in front of her with the action.

Jyn knocked twice before entering, her phone held up, clearly recording too.

“Well?” Jyn asked with an ear to ear grin, coming up beside Rey, who was still too shocked to do anything but stare back at her with wide eyes. “Are you going to answer him or what?”

“Did you know about this?” Rey asked, lips muffled under her fingers.

“I did.”

“Did you help him plan this?”

Jyn winced playfully and shrugged. “I did,” she whispered.

“Oh my God.”

“ _Oh my God_ , will you give the poor guy an answer!” Jyn laughed, gesturing towards the window. 

Rey pushed the curtain aside and flung the window open. When she leaned out, the boys slowly stopped playing, coming to a stop, all of them looking up at her with a giddy sense of anticipation.

This wasn’t real! This couldn’t be real! Resting her elbows on the windowsill, she grinned as her heart pounded in her chest. “You said prom was just a stupid antiquated tradition that was expensive and boring and not worth going to.”

Ben nodded. “Yup.”

“And you said “prom proposals” were the dumbest trend you have ever heard of and made our peers look like idiots.”

He grinned too. God, he looked like some dark prince from a fairy tale, all black-clothed and shaggy haired. “They are. They’re stupid. You’d have to be an idiot to ask someone to such a lame event in such an elaborate way.” Rey raised an eyebrow, amused. “To be clear,” he continued. “This isn’t that.”

Rey nodded cheeks aching from her irrepressible smile, eyes roaming over the big letters painted into the green grass. “Right, well, since it’s _not_ that, I guess I could say yes.” Beside her, Jyn gave a joyful little squeal.

“Perfect. It’s a date then?”

Her heart and stomach did a syncopated cartwheel. “It’s a date then.”

Off to the side of the yard, she heard two yelps of delight that sounded suspiciously like Kaydel and Rose. Poe shot his arms high into the air, shimming the tambourine in celebration while Armie lifted his hand for high-five as he ran by Ben, and Ben slapped his palm casually. 

**I can’t believe you did that!** She texted, still smiling hours later. 

**Were you surprised?** He wrote back. 

She bit her grin, unable to contain the thing. Surprised was an understatement. She never would have thought Ben would do a thing as ridiculous as a prom-posal. _Never._

Poe had asked Kaydel right in the entryway of the school, accompanied by a gigantic swarm of balloons and a bouquet of flowers. Ben smirked, folding his arms before him as he and Rey watched along with half the school population. 

“Do you think if they do anything in private it actually counts? Like if 100 people don’t witness it it never happened?” he joked later, as they sat in his car after school. 

Rey laughed quietly, shaking her head. There was no way Poe wasn’t going to be crowned Prom King and she was sure that Kaydel was going to make a glowing date at his side, soaking up all of the adoration and definitely the envy. 

Rose was certain that she was going to be spending prom night on her couch watching old reruns of _Vietnam’s Got Talent_ , wedged between her parents when one night her doorbell unexpectedly rang as they were setting the table for dinner. She answered it to find Pak Huynh, the only other Veitnamese-American student in her class standing there, a bouquet in hand. They had only spoken a handful of times, once earlier in the year because he needed to borrow an eraser in math class, another when they were at a New Year’s party with their parents and he said he liked her dress. 

It was fairly well known amongst the students in school that Pak had little to no interest in dating girls and was very heavily into all seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Project Runway. He had even taught Rey a really great cross-stitch that helped her in her costuming for the spring musical.

He stood on Rose’s stoop and asked permission from an _elated_ Mr. and Mrs.Tico to bring Rose to prom.

“I felt like I just had to say yes,” she sighed, flopping onto the grass of the schoolyard the next day. Rey sat cross-legged beside her, with Kay knelt behind her, swiftly parting Rey’s hair down the middle, and working half her scalp expertly into a dutch braid.

Rose groaned, now on her back, eyes closed, her face bathed in the bright afternoon light.

“I was really hoping Finn would ask me,” she lamented, before letting out a deep sigh from her nose.

Rey had really been hoping for that too, though she never got to ask why Finn had dragged his feet so much with prom just around the corner.

It was a perfect Spring day and they were all eager to soak up what little bit of sun they were able to get before the bell rang again and they were forced back into the sweaty hallways of the school. 

Suddenly, Rose popped up again from the grass beside them, causing both her and Kaydel to jump. 

“Did I tell you guys that Paige got a tattoo?” Rose exclaimed, the melancholy lifted and her face now lit with a grin. “A freaking _huge_ one too! It takes up the whole upper half of her left arm. I thought my father was honestly going to burst into flames; he was _so_ angry! But _then_ she finally told him about her and Phasma, and I really thought that he was going to drop into a pile of ash.”

Rey’s mouth hung open in shock. She didn’t think Paige was ever going to tell her parents about her and Phas! College must have given her some extra courage. 

“Are they pissed?” Kaydel asked, finishing off one braid of Rey’s hair with a tiny, clear elastic. She began to section off the other side.

“Yeah, but like, nowhere near as much as I thought they would be. I actually think my mom already knew about the Phas thing and just didn’t tell my dad,” Rose lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “And the tattoo is of a Vietnamese dragon, which she said represented Yang and the universe or whatever, so I think they’ll even come along to that eventually. They aren’t even going to make her come home from school or _anything!_ ”

Rey was already connecting the dots.

“So maybe now that they’re getting used to everything with Paige, they’ll let up on you a little bit?”

Rose sat up on her knees, clasping her hands before her in mocked prayer to the clouds above. “Please, God. Just for a little bit,” she joked. Slumping back down to the grass, she folded her legs before her with a slight frown. “I would give anything to get to go on a date with Finn,” she sighed. “If he ever asks me, that is,” she added with the slightest hint of bitterness. 

Rey made a mental note to find out later what exactly was up with Finn anyway. 

“It’d be so cool if we could all go out together! Like as official couples, ya know?” Kaydel said, securing the second elastic to the end of Rey’s braid. “Me and Poe, you and Finn,” she shuffled forward, crossing her legs and plopping down beside Rey. “Rey and Ben.”

Rey’s hand paused over the open magazine she had been mindlessly flipping through resting in her lap, her insides swooping involuntarily. 

They hadn’t really, _really_ talked about her and Ben as a couple since that morning in Kaydel’s bathroom.

When she looked at her raspberry splotched neck spotted with love bites and immediately burst into tears.

Kaydel flushed the toilet and hurried to her side quickly. 

“What’s the matter?” Her friend asked, eyes shining with concern in the dark room. 

“I am so stupid,” Rey cried into her palms, head down, hearing the sink run as Kaydel washed her hands. “Ugh, how could I be so _stupid_ , Kay?”

The sink cut off and when she looked between her fingers, Kaydel was frowning at her, wiping her hands dry with a towel. 

“I’m confused.”

Rey groaned, feeling helpless and hopeless. She reached up, tugging the pull-string to the light above the mirror. The light blazed into their eyes causing them both to squint harshly, as Kaydel’s mouth widened and Rey hung her head in shame. 

“Are those—”

Rey nodded heavily, the weight of tears once again filling her eyes. She watched as Kay’s features shifted through her emotions as she pulled it all together, her eyes eventually widening as she reached forward and pinched Rey on her shoulder, the fleshy part just over her armpit.

“Ow!” Rey cried, hand slapping over the spot, offended.

“ _You’ve been boinking my brother and you didn’t even tell me!_ ” Kaydel whispered harshly with a frown. 

“I’m not _boinking_ him!” 

_Yet_ , her own traitorous mind finished. 

Kaydel put her hands on her hips, her frown deepening. “Honestly, you two are ridiculous! The rest of us have been placing bets on when this was finally going to happen,” she reached up and took Rey’s chin in her hand, turning her face to examine her neck. “He’s such a liar. I should have known he was mauling you behind my back every free chance he got.”

“He’s not _mauling_ me,” Rey argued, and Kaydel rolled her eyes.

“Well the dummy doesn’t even know to keep all the hard sucking below the neckline,” Kaydel clucked her tongue, dropping her hand from Rey’s face with a shake of her head. “God, he really needs to start talking to Poe about this stuff. Alright, I don’t think we can get rid of them completely, but we can lessen them a little bit before you go home. You’re probably going to have to rock a scarf for a day or two.”

Rey nodded and Kaydel took her wrist, pulling her out of the bathroom. She followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. The light to the downstairs bathroom illuminated the floor under the door as the sound of running water let them both know that Ben was in the shower.

Kaydel yanked open the door to the refrigerator and huffed, kicking something across the tiled floor. 

“What’s with all the magnets?”

Rey’s face roared in a blush as she tucked her chin to her chest, guiltily. 

Kaydel retrieved a glass of ice from the freezer and acquired two large spoons from the silverware drawer, as the door to the bathroom swung open and Ben emerged in a blast of steam. He halted when he looked up and saw them, the terrycloth towel clutched at his hip, his hair wet and dripping, ears sticking out.

“Well if it isn’t the human Hoover himself,” Kaydel deadpanned. 

Ben scowled at her words. 

“What the fuck are you going on about this early?” He groused, snapping off the bathroom light, plunging the kitchen back into dull, early morning grey.

“My best friend’s neck, loaded with hickeys.”

Ben froze again, eyes slowly panning over to meet Rey’s as if questioning if that statement were true. She let out a deep breath and nodded. Ben’s shoulder’s fell, before he moved forward, securing the towel at his waist with a tuck as he came to stand before her, eyes narrowed. His body was still warm and damp, wet heat radiating off of him as his fingers gently cradled her chin. He lifted her face, turning it side to side, just as Kaydel had in the upstairs bathroom.

His face softened, his eyes so gentle it turned her insides to shimmering liquid. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said quietly, dipping his head towards hers. A drop of water slipped from his hair, patting on her shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Rey shook her head as his feather-light fingers graced over her neck. “Jesus, I had no idea,” his thumb reached up, swiping at her cheek as he cupped it.

A scoff startled them, knocking them out of their private little trance.

“You two are _unbelievable!_ ” Kaydel exclaimed, her expression scandalized. “ _Baby?_ Exactly how long has this been going on?!”

Ben and Rey exchanged looks, but neither spoke.

“Whatever,” Kaydel huffed, shaking her head and picking up the glass and spoons. “Rey and I have a long morning of cold spoon hickey removal ahead of us.”

He looked back down at her, frown still in place. “I’m really sorry. I must have gotten carried away,” again his thumb grazed a spot on her neck. 

Her hand reached up and cupped over his, reassuringly. “It’s okay. I’ll figure something out.”

A gentle smile tipped his lips as he leaned forward and gave her a kiss to her forehead, pulling a muttered _‘Good God’_ from Kaydel behind him. 

Back upstairs, she and Kaydel diligently alternated between freezing their spoons in the glass of ice and pressing the backs to Rey’s kiss bruised skin. She was expecting a barrage of questions, but instead her friend just hummed softly as she worked and they listened to the tv playing in the background of Kay's room. 

Sitting in the grass outside the school, Rey’s body felt a mix of chilling adrenaline and fiery paranoia simultaneously. “Uh,” she began, her eyes lifting first to look to Rose, then to Kaydel. The first looking at her slightly shocked that her secret was no longer secret, the second with a cool, sly calmness. She swallowed. “Yeah, I bet Ben would like that.”

Kay’s hint of a smile stretched into a full-blown thing and she squealed.

“ _Rey!_ ” she threw herself forward, wrapping Rey in a rib crunching hug that had them both splayed out on the grass. “You’re totally dating my _brother!_ That’s _insaaane!_ ” Kaydel laughed, eventually causing Rey’s worry to lift and for her to laugh a little bit too. Scooting back, Kaydel looked down at her, golden hair wild and waved in the sunlight. She squealed again, excitedly. “If you guys get married it’ll make us _sisters!_ ” 

Pushing herself up from the grass, Rey laughed a little hesitantly. “Whoa, let’s not book a caterer just yet.” 

Kaydel made a little fart sound with her mouth and waved her hand. 

“He’s totally in love with you, it’s practically inevitable. Like destiny,” she whispered and little sparkly-eyed.

Rey felt every nerve in her body flash-burn with excitement. _Love_. 

_He’s totally in love with you._

It was time, she decided. She had hesitated about it enough. 

Ben was now her boyfriend. They were going to go to prom together. They had already been getting closer and closer each time they delved into each other’s bodies. Each time they made the other stifle a cry or shudder deliciously from release.

A few days ago while she, Ben, Poe, and Kay all floated in the pool shortly after Mr. Solo reopened it for spring, Mrs. Solo unexpectedly came out into the backyard, shouldering her purse.

“Ben, Kay,” she said quickly, rooting around for her keys. “I have to run out for an emergency appointment with a client.” She pointed a stern finger to each of them. “I won’t be gone long. No funny-business while I’m away, do you understand?”

They all nodded, but as soon as her car backed out of the driveway, Poe and Kaydel were scrambling out of the water and racing into the house with little concern about leaving Ben and Rey behind.

They had gone “all the way” nearly a month before that and Kaydel said they had already blown through an entire pack of condoms. 

Ben’s hands landed on Rey’s hips, pulling her back against his chest in the water. He lowered a kiss to her shoulder. Then another, more eager but not forceful, on her healed neck. His fingers dug little circles into her hip bones.

“Do you want to go inside?” he asked, voice rumbling in his chest pressed against her back while he kissed her ear. Body surging like a hormone volcano, Rey turned her face, nodding wordlessly before catching his mouth with hers. 

She was still in her wet bikini when he deposited her onto his bed, his mouth trailing down her still chilled, damp skin from the hasty job they did drying off. His fingers curled around the band to her purple bottoms and she lifted her hips to make it easier for him to shuck them off. His fingers deftly snapped the small plastic clip on her sternum, pushing the material aside as her nipples budded out, tightening in the cool air. His mouth felt hot and soothing on pebbled, thrilled skin. It trailed down and down as his hands gently pushed her thighs apart.

He was going to… _oh, God_. Rey's stomach fluttered and fell.

“Wait,” she gasped, already breathless. Ben’s mouth lifted from her abdomen as he looked up at her, concern shining in his dark eyes. She sat up on her elbows, frowning and worrying at her lip.

“What’s the matter? Do you want to stop?” His voice was raspy, heavy, dripping with a desire for her he couldn’t hide.

She shook her head. “N-no— It’s… it’s just—what if it’s gross? What if you don’t like it? What if it tastes funny or—”

Ben smiled up at her softly, like she was being ridiculous. Maybe she was.

“Rey,” he said earnestly. He gazed down between her spread legs, to the most vulnerable part of her, adoringly. She resisted the shy urge to pull her knees back together. “I have been _dying_ to do this for you,” gently, he brought his finger up and trailed it over her sensitive lower lips. It set her body buzzing, fizzing, erupting again from the inside out as she gasped at his touch. 

“You have?” she whispered.

He looked back up at her and nodded. Rey licked her lips, her hand drifting over her belly to rest nervously below her belly button. 

“Okay,” she said softly. Ben brought his hand up to thread his fingers with hers and she rested her shoulders back onto his mattress, the weight of their joined hands feeling comforting on her stomach.

His mouth was warm, his tongue gentle at first as he acquainted himself with her. Ripples of feather-light waves rolled under the surface of Rey’s skin as she let her knees fall further apart, opening herself to him fully. The pressure of Ben’s mouth increased as her fingers tightened on his and he moaned deeply, vibrating her insides. 

Gentle suction made her press her hips to the mattress, the base of her spine curling up and lifting off. 

“You taste so fucking good,” he murmured against her, his tongue rolling, sliding through flushed, delicate skin, eliciting an electric intensity in her veins.

“I do?” One hand still clutched his, the other kneaded at the sheets as her breaths became shorter and shorter. 

“Mmmm,” he answered with another suck to her clit, more powerful this time. Rey let out a small irrepressible cry, her face feeling hot, her thighs beginning to tremble.

Ben gently pressed his fingers into her, the pressure invasion now a welcome and lovely push Rey yearned for. She wondered how _he_ would feel inside of her. That thought elicited a warm, liquid gush that made Ben groan again. His tongue pressed to her, lapping and flicking with perfect coercion. 

Rey turned her face, a strung-out growl roiling in the back of her throat as the beginning of an orgasm started to drag it’s way up her body. 

The fingers of her free hand landed on her thigh, nails digging into the flesh as her hips involuntarily moved with the motion of Ben’s mouth.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Oh God, Ben,” she gasped, chasing the high, letting herself rush right up to the edge. She slapped a hand to her mouth as she teetered at the peak, afraid to call out. To be too loud.

Ben’s fingers were pumping, pushing, rocking her body gently with each thrust. 

“I want to hear you,” he gasped, his mouth briefly breaking from her before he continued to tongue her through release. 

Rey fingers dropped down to card through his hair, her others still gripping his hand so tight now it caused his fingers to gain a slight purple hue against the bare skin of her pale lower-belly. She cried out, allowing herself to be as loud as she had ever been, the intensity and the fever of it fueling her rapture. 

“ _Ohhh, Ben_ ,” she howled, muscles trembling, nerve endings feeling like sparklers, skin tingling, and lit. “Ben, _I love you!_ ”

Coming down, she felt delirious. Like a floating feather lazily drifting down through the air, as Ben gently kissed at her inner thigh, fingers still entwined with hers. Eventually, he kissed his way back up her body, laying beside her and pulling her into his arms as they rested side by side.

He was still in his wet swim shorts, his arousal evident and pressed against Rey’s bare stomach. Her hand slid beneath the cold band and she gripped him, beginning to pump as he moaned and kissed at her hair, his hips rocking with her movements.

“Did you mean it?” he strained. 

Rey could feel the jump in his cock, the stiff, soft flesh sliding perfectly through her cuffed hand. 

“Mean what?” she whispered against his throat.

There was a noise, not quite a growl, not quite a whine. “What you said,” he panted, throat stretching to give her better access to his beating pulse. “ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, when her palm slid over the head. “What you said when you came.”

Rey’s heart jumped a little with the exposure of her word slip. Of the powerful truth serum that pure orgasmic bliss could bring. 

“Yes,” she whispered quietly, burying her forehead into his shoulder, the mixture of embarrassment and fear making her want to hide. It pulled a longer, deeper groan from him this time. 

He suddenly pushed her back, bracketing himself above her and kneeling between her open thighs. Rey’s entire body ignited, as fear and excitement and _anticipation_ roared through her. This was it. They were going to have sex. They were going to officially be each other’s first time. 

Ben moved her hand away, taking himself into his own grip and pumping furiously. 

“I love you too,” he told her in a curt, hash whisper, looking into her eyes. His face was flushed, lips a juicy red, eyes nearly black with blown pupils. His chest was heaving above her own as he kissed her roughly and Rey felt something hot and searing splatter on her stomach as Ben’s body stiffened then shuddered above hers. 

He rested his forehead against hers as he caught his breath, the weight of him coming to rest between her legs. He felt _right_ there. Like she could wrap her arms and legs around him and keep him there forever. Lazily, he kissed around her head and shoulders, while she combed her fingers through the back of his hair.

The memory made her smile. She wondered when it would _really_ happen? 

Would it be a total barf-loaded cliché if she asked him to do it on prom night? Could they even wait that long?

  
  


***

His mom was _pissed_.

The frown line that divided Leia’s eyebrows had never been so deep. Her jaw was set so sharply, Ben was worried it would freeze that way.

“Now, Sweetheart,” Han said gently, reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers. “Ben is an adult now. He’s allowed to make decisions regarding his own life.”

Her brown eyes bore into his father's in a way that made him have to glance away. Standing from the table, her chair made a rough noise against the floor as she pushed it back, shaking her head. Her mouth worked, jaw still hard, before she turned from him, making her way to lean over the sink, posture still intense and angered. 

He and Han exchanged glances.

Ben hadn’t expected this conversation to be easy. His mother was a life-long Democrat, anti-war, pro-peace, very vocal about her liberal opinions and her fight for certain beliefs. Practically just as much of a hippie as his uncle Luke—minus the farm and casual use of hallucinogens—that Ben knew of anyway. She abhorred injustice and wasn’t afraid to speak up for others. Compounded with the fact that she wanted him to go to a traditional college and become some lame-ass IT guy or a boring asshole professor or something, probably didn’t help the matter. 

“Mom,” it came out a little weaker than he expected, and he cleared his throat. “Mom, it’s… it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. The Marines is a distinguished branch of the military. The best of the best. I—I could, _would_ , learn so much. We’re not even at war right now, I could join the reserves. It’d give me a chance to be part of something bigger. To see the world. To make a difference.”

Her mother took a deep breath, her head lowering, as she nodded, back still to him as her hands gripped the counter, her knuckles turning white. 

“Leia,” his father said in a tone only reserved for her. 

Leia raised her hand, silencing him immediately. 

"Just... give me a moment," she said, softly.

Irritation was rising rapidly within Ben. Why was she acting like he just told her he wanted to go on the lam as a serial killer? Why couldn’t she just be happy that he had found something that he was truly interested in? Why couldn’t she just openly fucking support him in something _for once?_

Ben pushed back from the table forcefully, moving it towards his father in an unexpected fit of fed-up rage.

“This is bullshit,” he snapped, moving past his mother, and thundering down the stairs to the basement before slamming his door shut behind him. He paced the length of his room, tearing at his hair, the anger boiling over. Above him he could hear his parents voices rise as they began to argue.

He snatched his phone from its charger. 

**Hey you around?**

Almost immediately, Rey responded. 

  
  


**Out to dinner with my parents. What’s up?**

  
  


Ben let out an irritated sigh through his nose. Not her problem he was in a downward spiral of fury anyway.

**Nothing**

**Just thought you might want to hang out if you were home**

**Have fun. I’ll call you later**

  
  


She responded with 😘, but Ben was already sending a group text to Armie and Poe. 

  
  


**Armie: Bonfire @ Corrick’s later, want me to pick u up?**

  
  


**Poe: Prom shopping with Kay 😑**

**Ben:**

**Arm, pick me up at the end of my street on your way by. I’ll pitch in for beer**

**Poe, have fun 😂**

**Poe: 🖕**

**Armie: 😆😂**

**B, I’ll pick u up in 20**

  
  


*******

  
  


Armie was shitfaced. _Ben_ was shitfaced. How had that happened so quickly? Oh right, some asshole pulled out a vape pen, rumbling off something about thc percentage and now Ben couldn’t feel his face. Or his feet. He moved his hand and pinched at his leg through his pants.

At least his legs were working, he thought, staring mindlessly into the raging flames of the fire before them. Armie hiccupped beside him, lazily raising his beer to his mouth to take a sloppy sip. He looked _wrecked_ , eyes barely even open. 

He and Breyla had broken up recently and Armie wasn’t taking it very well. 

Her father came home unexpectedly one random Wednesday afternoon to find Armie buck-naked in her bed and promptly chased him, still undressed, into the street with a fireplace poker. After that, he was banned from seeing her completely. He moped around like a kicked puppy for several weeks, sighing heavily and perpetually frowning, body slacked and nearly boneless. 

Ben supposed he should be more sympathetic, but it was hard when he was just being so _whiny_ about it. 

“I gotta piss,” Armie huffed, stumbling to stand. He swayed a little, slapping a hand to his head as he shook it. “Jesus fucking Christ what was in that pen? I feel like I’m an astral protection… pro—protect— no.” He shook his head again. “A ghost or some shit. Like I have no body but I still gotta pee, man. Fucking wild,” he stumbled his way into the woods behind them in a ruckus of crunching leaves and snapping branches.

Ben was happy for the silence. The bonfire was big, but only 15-20 kids actually showed up, mostly from the neighborhood. He wished Rey was there. Maybe she could sneak out later and come join him.

He frowned. She probably wouldn’t be thrilled about his current fucked up state though. 

Head feeling weighted with sand, he tipped it back to look up toward the night sky, the bright shining moon making the clouds glow from behind. He smiled thinking about Rey. How she had said she loved him. Her face so pretty, her cheeks pink, her eyes shining, her hair messy. He wondered when “it” was finally going to happen, the thought alone making his dick twitch a little.

Well, at least _that_ was working too, he supposed.

The brush of grass and leaves forced him to lift his heavy head upright again. 

Kandri stood before him, blonde hair in a ponytail, a track sweatshirt on her upper half, but her legs bare in short-shorts. Girls made no sense to him when it came to only their upper bodies being cold. His sister did that shit all the time. 

“Hey,” she said with a little sway. Her smile had something wolfish in it as she tipped her cup to her mouth and drank.

“Hey,” he replied, watching as she turned and lowered herself to sit beside him, where Armie once was. 

“Having fun?” she asked airily with another sip. Ben shrugged a little, looking back towards the fire. 

“Just enjoying the night,” he brought his warm beer to his lips and drank it down with a slight grimace.

Kandri laughed, a light and tinkling thing. 

“Tell you what,” she teased playfully. “If you play a drinking game with me, I’ll let you have some of my cold vodka, _and_ some ice,” she grinned, wiggling her shoulders slightly.

Lately, she had chilled out on the blatant advances toward him, instead being much more relaxed and casually friendly. Maybe Ben’s defenses were down because of the weed and prior beers, but he looked at the nearly empty can in his hand and chuckled.

“Depends, it’s not some shitty berry flavored crap, is it?”

Her mouth dropped open in mock offense. “Why I never!”

That actually made Ben laugh. “Alright, I’ll play.”

Gleefully, she jumped up with a stumble, returning quickly with a cooler in hand, which she plunked before them, reclaiming her seat. She pulled out another red party cup, scooped in ice from a bag, glugged in some vodka, topped it with cranberry juice, and passed it to Ben proudly.

Ben fucking hated cranberry juice, but he wasn’t about to gripe over it now. It was still better than warm, shitty beer.

“Truth, Dare, or Drink. If you don’t want to answer a truth, you take a sip. If you don’t want to do a dare, you take three. I’ll go first. Truth or Dare, Ben?”

He picked truth, because he was a wuss. She went easy on him, asking him if he was the one who had pranked the girls on the track team by putting chicken bullion cubes in the showerheads. Ben snorted. He wasn’t. It had been Poe, but he kept that truth to himself.

They went back and forth. Truth every time. She cheated on a test last year, he hadn’t picked a college yet. All pretty mundane things. Despite not having refused an answer yet, his drink ran out and she refilled it. Eventually, Armie came back, slightly more coherent, and plopped into a leg-fold before them. Then, they were joined by a few more people. It was actually starting to be fun as the vodka warmed his body and numbed his nerves. 

Armie was dared to do a handstand, which ended with someone nearly being kicked in the head and a fresh grass stain on his shoulder. One girl confessed she wasn’t a virgin anymore, another that she stole a designer purse from a store. A few chose just to drink. 

“Your turn again, Ben,” Kandri smiled, her cheeks now rosy from the heat of the fire and undoubtedly the booze.

“ _Truth_ ,” Armie mocked in his best Ben impression. Somehow his arm had managed to sling around some brunette girl’s shoulder and she giggled at his joke.

Ben ripped up some blades of grass and threw them his way, causing Armie to fall over in a fit of laughter.

“Fine,” Ben said. “Dare.”

“Hmm,” Kandri tapped at her chin, thinking. “I dare you to…” her eyes narrowed and her smile grew. “Take off your shirt and keep it off for the rest of the party.”

“Oh _hell_ yeah,” joked a blonde girl Ben recognized from the spring musical. She leaned over to slap her palm against Kandri’s as they laughed for a high-five.

Ben shook his head with an eye roll. Stupid fucking party games. He gripped the bottom of his shirt and nodded in Kandri’s direction.

“Careful Corrick, it’s your turn soon, you know. Revenge is a bitch.”

She made a face, as if shocked.

“Is that a _dare_ , Solo?” she challenged playfully. Before anything else could be said, she pulled her sweatshirt clean over her head and tossed it behind her, lifting a playful eyebrow and her cup to her mouth with a quirked eyebrow. Ben quickly averted his eyes from her white lacy bra, while the rest of the group whooped and laughed, thrilled by her bold move.

“Well?” she said, sweetly, eyes suggestively landing on his shirt.

Ben let out a deep sigh and shook his head again. It was so dumb, but a little funny he had to admit. He shucked his shirt off and tossed it on the ground behind him.

“ _Whaaat!_ ” shrieked some skater kid who lived a few streets over. “ _Bro_ , that is _so_ not fair!” He looked down, flexing his own pec muscles humorously. 

“Damn dude,” teased Walker Grantz, the captain of the football team, shaking his head with a frown. “Leave some muscle milk for the rest of us.

Ben’s face burned with embarrassment and he shook his head, dismissing the attention. 

True to the dare, he kept his shirt off for the rest of the party. By the end of it, when they were getting ready to douse the flames, he was too messed up to find his shirt at all. 

“Goddamn it,” he groused grumpily, rubbing at his arms, the cold seeping in without the heat of the fire.

“Hey,” Kandri said kindly, walking beside him as they made their way back through the dark trail that would land them to the backside of the Corrick’s property. “If you want to borrow an old shirt of my brother’s, I can grab one real quick.”

Not keen on the idea of walking home in the middle of the night drunk _and_ half naked, Ben accepted the offer. 

“Ben,” Armie whispered in a scheming tone as they reached the edge of the Corrick’s lawn. “Do me a favor? Give me like… ten minutes, okay?” He nodded in the direction of the girl he had been cuddled with by the fire, who was waiting off to the side doing an impatient little dance. Ben rolled his eyes. The fucking horn-dog. 

“Whatever,” he grumbled, before Armie streaked off, lifting the girl right off the ground over his shoulder as she giddily squealed. 

Kandri shushed them harshly from the large back porch. Shaking her head, she waved for him to follow her. 

The Corrick's back porch was massive, taking up at least half the yard, leading to the inground swimming pool and a hot tub. He followed her over wooden boards, which sounded hollow and echoed in the quiet night. Off in the distance, he could still hear the chatter and laughter of the other party occupants as they dispersed into the neighborhood streets making their way home. 

They reached the sliding door and Kandri turned back to him. 

"My parents are probably deep in an Ambien coma, but we should be quiet anyway."

Ben nodded silently, his head swimming a little as he followed her into the warmer, temperature controlled air of the house. 

It was very different from any other time he had been there with their massive parties and loud music. The whole house was quiet, save the buzz and hum of different kitchen appliances. The room was cast in a dim blue hue from the various lights as they moved through the kitchen into the living room.

There was no reason for Ben to feel uneasy, but something was causing a cavity-like ache in his stomach.

"I uh, I can wait here," he whispered to her, coming to a stop at the bottom of the lush carpeted staircase. 

Kandri stopped a few stairs above him and turned. His eyes were adjusting to the dark and he could almost see her clearly now. "Sure, but I thought you might want to check out Denon's record collection," she smiled gently. 

That same _something_ started to feel like it was pulling backward at Ben’s gut through his spine. He ignored the instinct to stay anchored at the bottom of the steps by his heavy feet and instead nodded politely. 

“Sure.” He had to give Armie some time anyway. Ten minutes was a stupidly limited amount of time, drunk hook-up or not. It wouldn’t kill him to rifle through Denon’s collection, steal a t-shirt and waste a few more minutes. Hopefully he could stay upright.

Denon’s room was quiet and clean, the absence of him being away at college evident. Kandri switched on a dim, warm lamp by the bed. She opened a dresser drawer, sifting through for a moment, before producing a shirt and shaking it out of it’s folded state.

“This should fit,” she stepped forward, holding it up high against Ben’s bare shoulders. Her knuckles were cold. She was so much smaller than him. _Tiny_. He could see her scalp through the part of her hair on the crown of her head. So short. Even shorter than Smalls maybe. 

“Thanks,” he took the shirt and pulled it on over his head. When he closed his eyes it made his whole body seem to wave and he swayed a little bit with a groan.

“Whoa,” Kandri chuckled, her small chilly fingers pressing against his stomach and ribs in an attempt to steady him. “Maybe you should sit down?”

Ben’s stomach soured and he nodded with a frown, pulling his shirt down over the rest of his abs as she moved her hands away. The room seemed to be shifting, tilting a little as she helped guide him and he managed to move a few steps before heavily plopping himself down on Denon’s bed. He put his head in his hands and groaned through the nausea that was swimming it’s way up his chest.

Kandri’s hand gently touched at his hair beside his ear. “Are you okay?”

Ben nodded with a pinched frown, lifting his head from his hands with a sigh. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just drunk. That pen fucked me up, I think.”

“The vodka probably didn't help,” she offered. Her knees pushed gently between his legs on the edge of the bed. Her fingers spread into his hair. “I drank too much too, I think.”

And then her mouth was on his. Her soft, gentle tongue slipping past his unexpecting lips. There was a slight delay in his senses before the shock of it jolted him back, causing her to pitch forward over him to catch her balance.

Her eyes were wide, probably as wide as his. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hollowly. 

Ben’s brain was screaming, his body feeling like a fire alarm, flashing and shrilling, despite his stubbornly frozen limbs. 

“I have a girlfriend,” was all his broken brain could manage to spurt out of his mouth.

Kandri nodded but didn’t pull herself off of his lap. 

“I—I won’t tell. I won’t say anything,” her eyes flashed hopefully between his, then down to his mouth.

Ben shook his head furiously, his body needing to move, _immediately_. To get out of there. He gripped her shoulders, almost afraid he was going to bruise her delicate frame with his strong, panicked fingers.

“No. No, no,” he put her off to the side as he stood, a tidal wave of dizziness slamming into him. He swayed again.

“Ben,” she touched at his side, fingers slightly gripping his shirt. “No one has to know. We can just sleep in here. My parents will never look in here tomorrow. Just lay back down.”

He pressed at his forehead with the heel of his hand and shook his head. A mistake—the urge to wretch swarmed up his throat.

“I’ll know. I’m sorry, Kandri.”

He tripped forward, nearly blindly in the dark, through the house that seemed to feel like sand beneath his feet. His shoulder hit a door frame on his way out, finally bursting into the cold night air once more.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Armie grumbled, dusting off the back of his pants as he stood from the curb out in the front of the house as Ben stumbled through the grass of the front yard. 

Ben swallowed back a choke roughly, moving past him into the street lights.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” 

  
  
  


***

  
  


Monday nights were Rey’s favorites. She didn’t have any after school activities, Cassian usually had to work late, and she and Jyn would pick out some fun recipe off of Pinterest and prepare it for dinner, updating each other about the other’s day or sometimes singing and dancing around the kitchen.

With prom on the horizon, Jyn had picked her up from school so they could go hit up their favorite thrift stores, seeing if there was anything with the potential for makeover.

“We can look online too,” Jyn offered, flicking on her blinker to turn into the grocery store, their usual favorite consignment shop not having a single enticing hit. 

“I know,” Rey said, not quite disappointed yet. There was still enough time. Her sewing skills had only increased over the past year or so. She was pretty quick now. “If I saw a dress I really liked I wouldn’t be opposed to buying it instead.”

Jyn made a noise of agreement, pulling into a parking space. “Think they opened a pop-up dress shop at the poor thing that used to be the mall,” the two of them got out of the car, Rey reaching into the backseat to pull their cloth shopping bags out from the netting on the back of the passenger seat. “We can go check that out tomorrow night when I get out of work if you want.”

The list was relatively short tonight. They already had whole-grain pasta at home, but Jyn’s tomato seedlings had just sprouted, so they needed a bag of Roma tomatoes, creme fresh, and to replenish the stock of extra virgin olive oil that they had used up a few days ago.

They split up, Rey assigned to get the oil, Jyn making her way to produce. Divide and conquer was always the best way to get them in and out of the store as fast and efficiently as possible.

Rey knew exactly which brand to buy, bypassing all the top-shelf, extra bougie brands, and the cheapo big bottle, manufactured stuff, for a simple, organic brand that Jyn swore by. She snagged it from the shelf, quickly turning, head bowed as she looked at the label, only to slam right into a body. 

Rey stumbled back a little, startled. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, taken aback by the sight of the woman before her.

She was rail thin, nearly skeletal, her collarbone protruding out beneath the collar of a dirty sweat-worn t-shirt, covered by a heavy, oversized jacket, way too hot for the current weather. The smell of perspiration, and something overly herbal and strong, filled Rey’s nostrils and tickled at something in the back of her brain. 

Thin hair was pulled back into a painfully tight bun with stray strands reaching out towards nothing in the air. There was an unhealthy pallor to her skin, save the red, irritated scabs and pock marks, some healed, some freshly picked, scattered across her face. Her thin, pale mouth hung open, revealing some broken teeth.

Stunned, Rey realized she was staring. Staring into green eyes. Green eyes just like hers but smudged with worn liner. Eyes that she _knew_ , from a long time ago.

“Mum,” the word fell from her mouth in barely a whisper, her eyes suddenly burning.

The eyes before her, growing red and weighed down by dark circles, were wide. Rey thought about standing in front of the bent and warped mirrors in the carnival funhouse last year. Her own image distorted and twisted into a horrific version of her. This was something like that, only instead of laughing hysterically at the silliness of it, everything ground to a halt, as Rey’s life up to this very encounter seemed to fade away. 

The sound of the bottle of olive oil shattering on the floor after it slipped from Rey’s numb fingers jolted her with a blink, the woman’s eye’s pooled with tears now gone. Rey watched her coat billow as she ran at top speed away from her, merchandise falling from the jacket to slap onto the store floor, leaving a trail behind her. 

“Mum!” Rey shouted, ready to chase after her, her foot slipping in the pooling ooze of oil below her sneaker. Her arms pinwheeled as she frantically caught her balance.

There was a commotion and shouting at the entryway to the store Rey could not see.

“Rey!” Jyn called out from the top of the aisle behind her. Rey whirled around, sliding again, as Jyn ran up to her, eyes wide and worried. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

Rey’s face was aflame, wet with uncontrollable, free-flowing tears. It was _her!_ She was _sure_ of it!

“M-my Mum!” She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get a deep enough inhale to get the words out right and explain what had just happened. Each intake of air came in the sound of a panicked, shallow gasp. Jyn’s pretty face wrinkled in concern as she dropped the bag of tomatoes to the ground, uncaring about the bruising or smashing, her hands coming up to cradle Rey’s face frantically.

“Baby, you need to breathe,” she said sternly with a hint of panic in her voice. She began to take deep calming breaths, holding Rey’s face in her palms, their eyes locked. Rey nodded, attempting to mimic her, but the air was hard to force through. Slowly, her lungs began to open up and she managed to fill and empty them with whole, deep breaths.

When they got home, after paying for the bottle of spilled oil and apologizing profusely, Rey hadn’t felt much like cooking. The woman at the store was gone by the time they reached the front, employees still abuzz at the shoplifter causing such a disturbance during the dinner rush. She asked to be excused, her thoughts too heavy to keep her head upright anymore. Laying out on her bed, she thought tears would come, but they didn’t. Instead she drifted off into an exhaustive sleep.

In the morning, Rey blinked up at her ceiling, brain still heavy from sleep as a knock sounded gently at her door. She angled her head to look up to the doorway, as Jyn pushed the door open a crack. 

“Can I come in?”

Rey nodded, not sitting up, as Jyn took a seat on her bed, inside the curled curve of Rey’s body under the covers. Her hand reached up to gently comb through Rey’s hair, soothingly tucking it behind her ear. It made tears begin to leak uncontrollably from her eyes.

“Why would she run from me?” Rey asked, her heart feeling broken and conflicted. Was it really even _her?_ Why wouldn’t she want to see her? Was she really that painful to look at? Was it really that awful to see her? So many questions swarmed in and out of her head.

Jyn sighed heavily. “I don’t know, love. I wish I did. I wish I had all the answers and I could give them to you.” 

Rey sniffled, burying her cheek into the pillow a little as she looked up at Jyn’s face, soft with love and empathy. Her eyes were beginning with glitter with tears as she swallowed, nodding to Rey’s back. “Mind if I get in there?”

A ghost of a smile tipped Rey’s lips as she shook her head, Jyn moving to lay behind her over the covers, coiling her arms tightly around Rey’s waist. It felt like everything she needed. Like love, warmth, and _home_ all wrapped into a single consoling hug. Jyn’s chin rested in the crook of Rey’s shoulder with a sigh. 

“Did I ever tell you about the first day Cassian and I went to the orphanage?”

Rey shook her head and wiped at her eyes.

“When we lost Henry, I had to have an emergency c-section because I couldn’t give birth to him due to complications,” she began, quietly, slowly. “After that, there was an infection and they had to remove my uterus completely. I was devastated. I had always wanted to be a mother. Always wanted a chance to give a better life to someone than I had growing up. I felt like all of that had been ripped away for a while. I let it take over me, let the possibility of being childless cripple me for a long, long time.” Sighing deeply, she continued on. “When Cassian brought up adoption, I hadn’t even considered it to be an option. Could I love a baby that wasn’t mine as deeply as I loved my own? I’m embarrassed to say that now, but I was worried. We had a baby in mind when we went that day. There was a newborn that had just arrived and when she cried and squirmed in my arms I… I just,” Jyn’s voice cracked as she shook her head softly, burying her forehead into the back of Rey’s shoulder. “I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t love a baby that wasn’t my own. My heart wasn’t big enough. It _hurt_ too much,” snuffling, she pressed her nose gently into the fabric of Rey’s shirt. “I hated myself,” she whispered quietly. Rey’s own tears soaked her pillow now as she silently listened to Jyn’s confession. “I was convinced that I wasn’t fit to be a mother after all. I walked out of St. Cecelia’s ready to go home and cry myself to sleep when just by chance, Cassian had to stop on the front step to tie his shoe. All of the other children were in the yard, playing screaming, running around, but I looked up and in the second story window sat one lonely little girl, staring out into the yard, looking so, so defeated. So sad.”

Rey swallowed down a lump in her throat, her features bruising with emotion. 

“‘What about her?”, I asked that old _bitch_ nun,” Jyn continued and Rey gasped a laugh, wiping at her wet face. “She told me your story, along with how long you had been there. She said you were a sullen type. Kept to yourself, not especially "loveable", and Rey,” Jyn gave her own laugh, raising up a little, so she could look at Rey directly. “I have never wanted to punch an old lady so hard in my life.”

Another little watery laugh slipped from Rey as she rolled onto her back. Jyn gave her a soft smile, brushing back the hair from her face once again, lovingly. 

“I hadn’t even met you yet and I _knew_ . It was so instinctual and so pure. I had never felt anything like it in my life. You were like me. A little bruised by life’s circumstances, but not unloveable. _Never_ unloveable. I know I didn’t give birth to you and I missed out on a lot those first few years, but you were meant to be with me. I just _knew it._ In my bones, in my blood. And then we met you, and Cassian knew it too. Right away. Do you remember that first day?”

Rey wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to stop crying. She nodded her head as her lip trembled remembering the small, stuffy playroom of the orphanage. The hard tiny plastic chairs, the worn, musty rug with a faded fake highway printed on it, her mouth feeling like it was sewn shut from fear, her chin tethered to her chest. No one had ever chosen her. No one had ever wanted her before. She had such little hope then. 

Jyn’s face was painted with wet streaks, her green eyes puffy and red, her lashes wet and clumped together from tears. Rey loved her so much. Her _Mom_.

“I don’t know her reasons, and I am sure it wasn’t an easy decision, but I thank her _every day_ for allowing me to have you in my life. For letting me be a mother again to the most _amazing_ human being that is becoming such a wonderful, strong, and smart woman.” Leaning forward, Jyn planted a kiss to Rey’s forehead, before leaning back, head pitched on her hand and swiping away the tears spilling over Rey’s flushed face. 

Overcome with emotion, Rey flung her arms around Jyn’s neck and buried her face into her shoulder, as the two of them cried, Jyn holding Rey tightly until the tears finally subsided. 

“How about you stay home from school today and we hang out in our pajamas and watch old movies on the couch?” Jyn asked after a while, soothingly rubbing Rey’s back. Smiling, Rey nodded. 

They did a marathon of Julia Roberts movies from the 80’s and 90’s and by the next morning at school, she felt a lot better. She supposed the hurt from a wound so deep would never really go away, maybe always be a dull ache, but perhaps overtime, she would learn to live with it.

Before lunch, she and Rose dipped into the girls room by the cafeteria—it was bustling with girls, some juniors and seniors passing through on their way from their lunch, freshmen and sophomores on their way to go eat. She pushed into a stall and squatted to relieve herself, thinking about how she and Jyn laughed and sang along to “I Say a Little Prayer for You” during My Best Friend’s Wedding. 

“You didn’t!” Hissed a voice outside of the stall, Rey recognized as Reina Kara, a junior in the theater department. 

“Shhh!” Hushed another voice, giggling slightly. “He hasn’t broken up with his girlfriend yet. But I bet he’s totally going to. Hopefully he’ll do it before prom.” There was a pause, “I heard he’s still a virgin because she won’t put out.” 

A snort. “Well that’s a shame, Ben Solo’s a delicious hunk of man-meat that deserves a bite taken out of him. I heard he’s hung like a horse.”

Rey froze, her hand reaching for the toilet paper, her heart pounding high and loud in her chest. Had she just heard that right?

Joint chuckling was followed by a deep sigh and the zipper of a bag closing.

“I _so_ thought you were going to hook up at your party! How he _dared_ you to take your shirt off like that! I mean, _come on!_ ” 

The hiss of faucets followed as Rey dried herself, shaky hands buttoning her pants as she listened intently.

“ _Well_ …”

“You didn’t!”

“All I can say is that what happens in Denon’s room, stays in Denon’s room…”

Unbridled anger boiled over in Rey’s heart, hissing and steaming. She snapped back the lock to her stall, yanking the door open, teeth grit into a sneer as her eyes met Kandri Corrick’s in the reflection of the large mirror on the wall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😬 Let the teenage angst begin!
> 
> Chapter Title:  
> [Nancy Sinatra- Bang Bang](https://youtu.be/BkKDSFYvxKU)
> 
> On the LtbL playlist:
> 
> [AWOLNATION- All I Need](https://youtu.be/O-2orxlB1K8)
> 
> [The Velvet Underground- Pale Blue Eyes](https://youtu.be/MA3aKUwu-Dk)
> 
> [Grouplove- Burial](https://youtu.be/G7ZMm7rNY2Y)


End file.
